Back
Growing up, I was always into movies as entertainment. One Sunday, when I was around 17, I came across ‘Raise The Red Lantern’ on our local PBS station. I didn’t know anything about 1920s republican-era China, or Chinese history, but I found myself transfixed by this seemingly mundane and quiet tale of palace intrigue. I was drawn in by these sights, sounds and elements that were another culture’s history.
Creatives From MADRE, Love Song, WW7, Partizan, Epoch and more Share The Moment They Fell in Love With Film
February 14, 2025
Ruganzu Howard, director – Epoch Films, USA
“Raise The Red Lantern” (1991)
“Raise The Red Lantern” (1991)
Growing up, I was always into movies as entertainment. One Sunday, when I was around 17, I came across ‘Raise The Red Lantern’ on our local PBS station. I didn’t know anything about 1920s republican-era China, or Chinese history, but I found myself transfixed by this seemingly mundane and quiet tale of palace intrigue. I was drawn in by these sights, sounds and elements that were another culture’s history.
The story and performances were subtle, layered and immersing — so much so that by the time credits began to roll, I had forgotten myself entirely — that I was in fact not the bride of a wealthy Chinese merchant and my fate was not Songlian’s. I’d seen plenty of movies before that, but why did I – an American Black man – understand and sympathise and even see myself in a Chinese woman born one hundred years before me on the other side of the earth? I realised the metamorphic power of the medium.
Read the full feature in Little Black Book!