General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

King of the Children (孩子王)

King of the Children (孩子王; also romanized Hai zi wang) is a 1987 Chinese drama film directed by Chen Kaige, produced by Xi'an Film Studio, and adapted from Ah Cheng's novella of the same title. Set in rural Yunnan during the Cultural Revolution, it follows a sent-down city youth with little formal education who is assigned to teach at a village school and begins to abandon rote instruction in favor of having his students write about their own lives.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director / screenwriters	Chen Kaige; screenplay by Chen Kaige and Wan Zhi, based on Ah Cheng's novella¹
Production	Xi'an Film Studio; producer Wu Tianming; Eastmancolor, 35 mm; 106 minutes; Mandarin¹
Key crew	Cinematography Gu Changwei; music Qu Xiaosong; editing Liu Miaomiao¹
Lead cast	Xie Yuan (Lao Gan, the teacher), Yang Xuewen (Wang Fu, a student), Chen Shaohua (Headmaster Chen), Zhang Caimei (Laidi)¹
Release	China, 1987; screened at the 41st Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 1988³
Festival standing	Nominated for the Palme d'Or in the main competition at Cannes⁴
Domestic reception	Reportedly sold only a single print within China, bought by the China Film Archive⁵

Spoilers

Story

The film is set during the ten years of turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). A young man who has spent seven years in a production brigade in the mountains is called by the team leader and sent to a crude, under-equipped school on a hillside as its teacher, a posting that earns him the nickname "King of the Children."² The school is so short of paper that the students have no textbooks, yet unused, forbidden teaching materials sit piled in a corner gathering dust.⁶

Instruction consists of the teacher copying the textbook onto the blackboard while the students copy it into their notebooks. Disgusted by this, the teacher decides to discard the textbook and starts again from teaching the students to write, so that they can compose letters and texts of their own rather than transcribe. Their expressive ability improves, and trust grows between teacher and students.⁶ In one episode he bets a diligent student, Wang Fu, whether the boy can turn the next day's bamboo-cutting into a composition written that same night; when Wang Fu wins, the teacher tells him that recording an event always comes after the event itself, and the boy declines to take the dictionary that was the stake.⁶

When word reaches party officials that he is not teaching according to the syllabus and the textbook, he is dismissed and sent back to the production brigade. Leaving the school, he leaves Wang Fu the dictionary with a written instruction: from now on, copy nothing, not even the dictionary.²^•⁶

Themes and intent

Chen Kaige framed the film as a critique of the education he himself had received. He said he hoped children would never again get the education of his generation, which he described as teaching only approved material in a forced, indoctrinating way that produced conformity and left students without independent creativity; the film's first layer of meaning is a rejection of that stale method.² In a statement quoted by the Vesoul festival, he put it directly: "I hope our children will never get the education we had. I hated the educational system which was imposed upon us. Then, it was also the best memories of my teenage years."⁷

Chinese commentary has read the film as a reflection on what culture and civilization are, and on the individual's place within a large historical cycle. One noted tension: the teacher's final conclusion is that culture is best discarded, yet teaching children to reject culture is itself an act within Chinese culture, a bind the film is said to treat as a human tragedy.² Critics have also pointed to the contrast between the grandeur of the Yunnan landscape and the smallness of the people within it, and to the film's symbolic, fable-like construction.²^•³

Production

Chen Kaige shot the film in 1987 in Yunnan, returning to the region where he had spent seven years as a sent-down youth (Urban youth sent to rural areas during the Cultural Revolution).⁸ The project came about by accident: Xi'an Film Studio had first invited him to adapt Lühuashu, but he judged that the script would need major rework and that the winter season the film required could not wait, so he switched to King of the Children in July 1986.⁹

Studio backing. Chen later acknowledged that the film went into production only because of the support of studio head Wu Tianming, who produced it, and of Hu Jian, who valued art films' overseas market and agreed to cover 350,000 of the film's 700,000 yuan budget, securing it a place in the studio's shooting schedule.⁹^•¹

The crew was assembled entirely within China. Cinematography was by Gu Changwei, who also appears in a small acting role as Secretary Wu; the score was composed by Qu Xiaosong, and the sound team included Tao Jing and Gu Changning.¹ Chen described his artistic aim for the film as wanting "to make films in the simplest way possible."³

Release and reception

The film's path to an audience was difficult. In September 1987, at the first China Film Exhibition, it was not on the official program because it had missed the registration deadline. When many foreign guests demanded to see it, Wu Tianming rented a screening room at the Beijing Film Studio, arranged a showing, and personally carried the film's poster from table to table among the foreign visitors despite obstruction from the China Film Corporation; the film was subsequently sold to fourteen countries.⁹ Chen reportedly said afterward that he would never do anything against Wu Tianming for the rest of his life.⁹

At the 41st Cannes Film Festival the film was formally screened on May 17, 1988, and competed for the Palme d'Or.³^•⁴ Chinese accounts attribute its failure to win over dense imagery and an obscure theme.¹⁰ At home it barely circulated: it reportedly sold only one print, purchased by the China Film Archive, and never received wide domestic release.⁵

Western critics responded more warmly. Time Out called it a follow-up to Yellow Earth and The Big Parade that was "something like a masterpiece," taking its tonality from the harsh beauty of the Yunnan landscape, where hard-edged realism blurs into hallucination, and free of sentimental humanism.¹¹ The film has since been cataloged as a work of the Chinese Fifth Generation, the movement Chen's Yellow Earth (1984) helped define.¹² On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.1/10 from about 742 votes.¹³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026