**Asian Education on Film
Episode Two - King of the Children (孩子王) (Chen Kaige, China, 1987) ** In this second episode of the series Asian Education on Film, Edward Vickers discusses Chen Kaige’s 1987 film King of the Children, based on a short novella of the same name by Ah Cheng. A classic of filmmaking by one of China’s leading so-called ‘Fifth Generation’ directors, King of the Children deals with the episode that was formative for this entire group: the experience of ‘sent down youth’ (知情 / zhiqing) during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976.
Like many of these youth, the main protagonist of King of the Children, a young man who goes by the name (or nickname) Lao Gar, is assigned to teach in a village school. The Cultural Revolution is widely regarded in China today, at least by educated urbanites, as having been an unmitigated disaster as far as education was concerned. To be sure, these years were disastrous for higher education, with high schools and colleges initially closed and educational opportunities for urban youth blocked or curtailed. Selective academic examinations were abolished. Tertiary institutions eventually reopened with programmes primarily targeted at ‘soldiers, peasants and workers’, and access determined on ‘political’ grounds (or ‘class background’). Curricula at every level of education were highly politicised.
But King of the Children offers a more complicated reflection on the cultural and educational implications of the Cultural Revolution. Village schools of the kind depicted in this film were responsible for a significant spread in basic literacy and numeracy across rural China. In this sense, the educational implications of the Cultural Revolutionary decade were far from entirely negative. However, the message Chen Kaige is seeking to communicate here is that, at a deeper level, the Cultural Revolution and the educational arrangement associated with it, far from overthrowing China’s traditions or ‘old culture’, actually epitomise some of its worst elements - elements that have endured down to this day.
The full film of King of the Children can be viewed here: youtube.com/watch?v=h4o_gaXHXp4
Further reading / viewing:
Chen Kaige and Tony Rayns (1989). King of the Children and the New Chinese Cinema. London: Faber and Faber.
Suzanne Pepper (1996). Radicalism and Education Reform in Twentieth Century China: The Search for an Ideal Developmental Model. Cambridge University Press.
Jiang Wen (1994). In the Heat of the Sun (陽光燦爛的日子).
Zhang Yimou (1999). Not One Less (一个都不能少). China: Guangxi Film Studio.
