{ "id": "epkdwbp031", "slug": "new-years-sacrifice", "title": "New Year's Sacrifice (祝福)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form", "label": "Films by genre, form, and subject", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations", "label": "Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations.novel-and-short-fiction-adaptations", "label": "Films based on novels, novellas, and short fiction", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations.novel-and-short-fiction-adaptations" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations.novel-and-short-fiction-adaptations.films-based-on-early-20th-century-litera", "label": "Films based on early 20th-century literature", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations.novel-and-short-fiction-adaptations.films-based-on-early-20th-century-litera" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.chn.t1800.culture", "label": "China · 1800 to 1945: Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1800.culture", "path": [ { "id": "geo.chn", "label": "China", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1800", "label": "China · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.chn.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.chn.t1800.culture" } ] } ], "excerpt": "New Year's Sacrifice (祝福, Zhufu) is Lu Xun's 1924 short story, opening Wandering, about the widow Xianglin Sao's destruction by feudal ethics; adapted in 1956 into New China's first color feature film by Xia Yan and Sang Hu.", "snippet": "New Year's Sacrifice (祝福, Zhufu) is Lu Xun's 1924 short story, opening Wandering, about the widow Xianglin Sao's destruction by feudal ethics; adapted in 1956 into New China's first color feature film by Xia Yan and Sang Hu.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.genre-form.adaptations.novel-and-short-fiction-adaptations.films-based-on-early-20th-century-litera", "markdown": "# New Year's Sacrifice (祝福)\n\n**New Year's Sacrifice** (*Zhufu*, 祝福) is a short story by the Chinese writer [Lu Xun](https://www.edgepedia.org/lu-xun) (鲁迅), written on 7 February 1924 and published that March in *Eastern Miscellany* (《东方杂志》) volume 21, number 6; it later became the opening story of his collection *Wandering* (《彷徨》)[1](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nichidaichubun/2025/22/2025_01/_pdf/-char/en) • [2](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2024/0821/c419384-40303040.html). Told through a first-person narrator who returns to his home village of Luzhen for the [New Year](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-year), it follows the servant Xianglin Sao (祥林嫂) through two marriages, two widowhoods, begging, and death during the New Year festivities, and it is counted with \"Kong Yiji\" (1918) and \"The True Story of Ah Q\" (1921) among Lu Xun's three great literary character creations[3](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html). In 1956 it was adapted into the film *New Year's Sacrifice*, the first color feature film made in the People's Republic of China[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Written / published | Written 7 February 1924; published March 1924 in *Eastern Miscellany* 21(6); opening story of *Wandering*[1](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nichidaichubun/2025/22/2025_01/_pdf/-char/en) • [2](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2024/0821/c419384-40303040.html) |\n| Protagonist | Xianglin Sao, a widow twice married, twice widowed, driven to begging and death in Luzhen[3](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html) |\n| Narrative form | First-person retrospective narration by an educated \"I\" visiting home; about 10,000 characters long[5](https://www.hfgcxx.com/upload/files/%E6%96%B0%E7%89%88%E6%95%B0%E9%98%85%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E7%9B%98/%E8%89%BA%E6%9C%AF/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1%E5%90%8D%E7%89%87%E9%89%B4%E8%B5%8F%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8%28%E4%BA%8C%29.pdf) |\n| Central question | Xianglin Sao asks the narrator whether a soul exists after death, a question the narrator cannot answer[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html) |\n| 1956 film | Beijing Film Studio; screenplay Xia Yan, director Sang Hu, starring Bai Yang and Wei Heling; premiered 19 October 1956 as New China's first color feature[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html) |\n| Film honors | Special Jury Prize, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, 1957[6](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2136741.shtml) |\n| Later adaptation | Yue opera film *Xianglin Sao* (1978), directed by Cen Fan, starring Yuan Xuefen and Jin Caifeng[7](https://www.dangjian.cn/whsb/2025/04/25/detail_202504257815893.html) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### The story\n\nThe narrator returns to Luzhen at the end of the lunar year, when households perform the \"blessing\" sacrifice (祝福) that gives the story its title. He meets Xianglin Sao, an old servant woman reduced to begging, who asks him whether people have souls after death and whether the dead can meet their families; he answers evasively, and she dies soon afterward amid the New Year firecrackers[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html). The bulk of the story is his recollection of her life: widowed young, she flees a mother-in-law who intends to sell her into a second marriage, works as a servant in the household of the landlord Fourth Master Lu, is seized back and remarried to He Laoliu in the mountains, loses him to illness and her son Amao to a wolf, and returns to Luzhen, where Fourth Master Lu treats her as an inauspicious person barred from touching the sacrificial offerings[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/eportal/ui?articleKey=11c2c9be43c14bb28b78a2a60ac14148&columnId=c7b2b75d20ab487aba25f921317e5199&pageId=28667ecb5be14f238d70364a7ede7c69). Advised to donate a threshold at the local temple so that thousands may tread on it and cleanse her supposed sin, she saves her wages for this purpose, but is still excluded from the rites and dismissed; she declines into a broken beggar and dies on the night of the blessing sacrifice[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/eportal/ui?articleKey=11c2c9be43c14bb28b78a2a60ac14148&columnId=c7b2b75d20ab487aba25f921317e5199&pageId=28667ecb5be14f238d70364a7ede7c69).\n\nThe story is short, about 10,000 characters, and is built from fragments arranged in first-person flashback[5](https://www.hfgcxx.com/upload/files/%E6%96%B0%E7%89%88%E6%95%B0%E9%98%85%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E7%9B%98/%E8%89%BA%E6%9C%AF/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1%E5%90%8D%E7%89%87%E9%89%B4%E8%B5%8F%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8%28%E4%BA%8C%29.pdf). Its most discussed formal feature is the figure of the narrator \"I\": an intellectual who pities Xianglin Sao but cannot answer her question about the soul and leaves town uneasy. Scholars have argued that readings focused only on Xianglin Sao miss this second center of the story, which turns the narrative inward on the enlightened narrator's own helplessness[9](https://lxyj.cbpt.cnki.net/portal/journal/portal/client/paper/382ba7ef97aaf371d6522351502d34e4).\n\n## Themes and interpretation\n\nThe standard reading, established over decades of criticism, treats the story as an indictment of the feudal ethics that destroyed a traditional Chinese woman: the film's own synopsis attributes Xianglin Sao's fate to the four ropes of political, religious, clan, and marital authority in the old society[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/eportal/ui?articleKey=11c2c9be43c14bb28b78a2a60ac14148&columnId=c7b2b75d20ab487aba25f921317e5199&pageId=28667ecb5be14f238d70364a7ede7c69). Later scholarship has widened this frame. Cao Xixiu, a professor at Shaoxing University's School of Humanities, argues that the story's distinctive value lies in its search for a way out for ordinary people in desperate situations, aligning it philosophically with pieces in Lu Xun's prose-poem collection *Wild Grass* such as \"The Passer-By\" and \"Dead Fire\"; he notes that Lu Xun, who elsewhere criticized fiction that piles coincidences on one character, concentrated \"all unbearable misfortunes\" on Xianglin Sao, an exception to his own practice[10](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2866900). Other lines of interpretation read the story through Lu Xun's own \"second despair\" after the family break of 1923, through folk religion and nostalgia, and through the intellectual's self-examination[2](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2024/0821/c419384-40303040.html).\n\n## Early reception\n\nUnlike \"Kong Yiji\" and \"The True Story of Ah Q\", the story drew little immediate attention; for two or three years after publication it appeared only in occasional survey articles[3](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html). The first dedicated review, \"Lu Xun's 'Zhufu'\" by Jing Shen, ran in *Literature Weekly* (《文学周报》) volume 4, number 24, in August 1927, and said little beyond noting the thinness of human sympathy in the story and the maidservant's unshareable grief[3](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html). A 1928 reader's letter in Beijing's *New Morning Post* described the story as one in which \"everyone eats Xianglin Sao\" and asked when China would stop producing more of her; a 1942 debate in the Yan'an *Liberation Daily* between Mo Han and Li Qun turned on whether Xianglin Sao's fear of hell meant she longed for it or dreaded it[3](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html). Sustained study of the character gathered pace only from the 1950s[3](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html).\n\n## The 1956 film\n\nFor the twentieth anniversary of Lu Xun's death, the story was adapted for the screen. The Shanghai film studio commissioned [Xia Yan](https://www.edgepedia.org/xia-yan), a playwright and then deputy minister of culture, to write the screenplay in 1955; he completed a first draft in June 1955, solicited comments in Shanghai and Beijing, and revised the script twice more[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html). During location scouting the production was transferred from Shanghai to the newly reorganized Beijing Film Studio, and the planned black-and-white film became a color one, a change tied to the [First Five-Year Plan](https://www.edgepedia.org/first-five-year-plan) and to a study group that had trained at Moscow Film Studio in color production[11](https://wxs.sass.org.cn/2023/0606/c6913a545498/page.htm). Sang Hu directed; Bai Yang played Xianglin Sao and Wei Heling played He Laoliu[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html). The film premiered in Beijing on 19 October 1956, ran for 55 days and more than 370 screenings at Beijing's top-grade cinemas, and won a Special Jury Prize at the 1957 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html) • [6](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2136741.shtml). It runs 98 minutes in the China Film Archive's record, in color, with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio[8](https://www.cfa.org.cn/eportal/ui?articleKey=11c2c9be43c14bb28b78a2a60ac14148&columnId=c7b2b75d20ab487aba25f921317e5199&pageId=28667ecb5be14f238d70364a7ede7c69).\n\n**Changes from the story.** Xia Yan reorganized the material for the screen: the flashback became a chronological narrative, the \"I\" narrator's subjective account became a third-person narration with voice-over, and the few lines about Xianglin Sao's remarriage to He Laoliu were expanded into a full stretch of married life, childbirth, and loss[5](https://www.hfgcxx.com/upload/files/%E6%96%B0%E7%89%88%E6%95%B0%E9%98%85%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E7%9B%98/%E8%89%BA%E6%9C%AF/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1%E5%90%8D%E7%89%87%E9%89%B4%E8%B5%8F%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8%28%E4%BA%8C%29.pdf). Xia Yan decided not to have Lu Xun appear in the film, and changed Xianglin Sao's question about the soul from a question put to the narrator into a despairing monologue[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html). The most consequential addition was a scene in which Xianglin Sao takes a kitchen knife and chops down the temple threshold she had donated. The addition was contested from the film's release in 1956: Lin Zhihao argued in *Literary Gazette* (《文艺报》) 1956, no. 24, that the detail was unconvincing and damaged the coherence of her tragic character, since the film still ends with her tormented by the question of the soul; other critics charged that the scene exaggerated and distorted her personality to serve a message of class resistance[4](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html). Later film histories describe the scene as a widely accepted expression of protest against evil forces, with early doubts about its psychological plausibility fading from view[12](https://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Source/bnBook_ID-1950_No-01.pdf).\n\nScholars have also read the film as a state project: [Li Zhi](https://www.edgepedia.org/li-zhi) of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences describes it as a commemorative tribute film that wove national identity and class feeling into a new national film style, and notes that in its international circulation, mainly in socialist and newly independent countries, Xianglin Sao was received as a figure for the laboring people of old China as a whole[11](https://wxs.sass.org.cn/2023/0606/c6913a545498/page.htm).\n\n## Later adaptations\n\nThe story has been adapted repeatedly. A Yue opera version of *Xianglin Sao*, first staged in 1946, remains in the Shanghai Yue Opera troupe's repertoire[1](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nichidaichubun/2025/22/2025_01/_pdf/-char/en). In 1978 the Yue opera film *Xianglin Sao*, directed by Cen Fan with Yuan Xuefen and Jin Caifeng, brought the stage version to the screen[7](https://www.dangjian.cn/whsb/2025/04/25/detail_202504257815893.html). Lianhuanhua (picture-book) editions include a 1950 volume with drawings by [Feng Zikai](https://www.edgepedia.org/feng-zikai), a 1955 *Xianglin Sao* from Liaoning Fine Arts Publishing House, and *New Year's Sacrifice* editions from People's Fine Arts Publishing House in 1957 and 1974[13](https://m.fx361.com/news/2022/0615/18989953.html). The story is also a fixed text in the Chinese high-school curriculum, where film clips of the 1956 adaptation are used in teaching[14](https://m.fx361.com/news/2023/0901/22464417.html).\n\n## References\n\n1. [Yokoyama, Go. \"From the novel 'Zhufu' to the Yue opera 'Xianglin Sao' and the film 'Zhufu': on differences in textual interpretation.\" *Nichi-Dai Chubun* 22 (2025).](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/nichidaichubun/2025/22/2025_01/_pdf/-char/en)\n2. [Cai Dongfeng. \"Rereading 'Zhufu': the 'second despair' and Lu Xun's literary act.\" *Lu Xun Research Monthly*, via China Writer Net, 21 August 2024.](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2024/0821/c419384-40303040.html)\n3. [Gu Xingyun. \"Six views of the character Xianglin Sao: fifty years of 'Zhufu' research (1950–2000).\" *China Reading Weekly*, via China Writer Net, 7 March 2022.](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0307/c442005-32367927.html)\n4. [Ge Tao. \"How Xia Yan wrote the screenplay of 'Zhufu'.\" *China Reading Weekly*, via China Writer Net, 1 September 2022.](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2022/0901/c404063-32516713.html)\n5. [Dictionary of Famous Chinese Films (II), entry on 祝福.](https://www.hfgcxx.com/upload/files/%E6%96%B0%E7%89%88%E6%95%B0%E9%98%85%E8%B5%84%E6%BA%90%E7%9B%98/%E8%89%BA%E6%9C%AF/%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1%E5%90%8D%E7%89%87%E9%89%B4%E8%B5%8F%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8%28%E4%BA%8C%29.pdf)\n6. [1905.com, film record: 祝福.](https://m.1905.com/m/film/info/2136741.shtml)\n7. [\"Lu Xun and film.\" Party Building Net, 25 April 2025.](https://www.dangjian.cn/whsb/2025/04/25/detail_202504257815893.html)\n8. [China Film Archive, film record: 祝福 (1956).](https://www.cfa.org.cn/eportal/ui?articleKey=11c2c9be43c14bb28b78a2a60ac14148&columnId=c7b2b75d20ab487aba25f921317e5199&pageId=28667ecb5be14f238d70364a7ede7c69)\n9. [Wen Kan. \"The appearance and disappearance of 'I': rereading the theme of Lu Xun's 'Zhufu'.\" *Lu Xun Research Monthly* no. 383 (2014).](https://lxyj.cbpt.cnki.net/portal/journal/portal/client/paper/382ba7ef97aaf371d6522351502d34e4)\n10. [Cao Xixiu. \"'Zhufu,' 'Wild Grass,' and Lu Xun's singular philosophy of life.\" *Academic Monthly* 2018 no. 11, via The Paper, 4 February 2019.](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_2866900)\n11. [Li Zhi. \"The film 'Zhufu' and the construction of China's image in 1956.\" *Literature & Art Studies* 2019 no. 10.](https://wxs.sass.org.cn/2023/0606/c6913a545498/page.htm)\n12. [A History of Chinese Film 1949–2000 (scanned volume).](https://www.virtualshanghai.net/Asset/Source/bnBook_ID-1950_No-01.pdf)\n13. [Zhan Yubing. \"Popular and lyrical: a comparative study of the 1957 and 1974 lianhuanhua 'Zhufu'.\" *Journal of Hangzhou Normal University* 2022 no. 3.](https://m.fx361.com/news/2022/0615/18989953.html)\n14. [电影赏析在《祝福》教学中的应用_参考网](https://m.fx361.com/news/2023/0901/22464417.html)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Adaptations of literature, stage, and other media › Films based on novels, novellas, and short fiction › Films based on early 20th-century literature*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"New Year's Sacrifice (祝福)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[New Year's Sacrifice (祝福)](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"New Year's Sacrifice (祝福)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/new-years-sacrifice. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "New Year's Sacrifice is Lu Xun's 1924 short story, opening Wandering, about the widow Xianglin Sao's destruction by feudal ethics; adapted in 1956 into New China's first color feature film by Xia Yan and Sang Hu." }