General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20267 min read

The Herdsman (牧马人)

The Herdsman (牧马人) is a 1982 Chinese drama film directed by Xie Jin, produced by the Shanghai Film Studio, and adapted from Zhang Xianliang's 1980 short story Spirit and Flesh (灵与肉). It stars Zhu Shimao as Xu Lingjun, a man labeled a rightist because of his capitalist family background who is sent to work as a horse herder on a northwest pasture, and Cong Shan as Li Xiuzhi, the refugee girl he marries. When his wealthy father returns from the United States after the Cultural Revolution and invites him to leave China, Xu chooses to stay on the grassland.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Director / studio	Xie Jin; Shanghai Film Studio¹
Source	Short story Spirit and Flesh (灵与肉) by Zhang Xianliang, published 1980; screenplay by Li Zhun²
Release	May 1, 1982 (mainland China); color, Mandarin, 99 minutes¹
Principal cast	Zhu Shimao (Xu Lingjun), Cong Shan (Li Xiuzhi), Liu Qiong (Xu Jingyou), Niu Ben (Guo Pianzi)³
Attendance	More than 130 million admissions in China⁴
Major awards	Hundred Flowers Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (1983); Golden Rooster Best Supporting Actor and Best Editing (1983); Ministry of Culture 1982 Outstanding Film¹^•²
Later life	Went viral on Douyin in late 2019; Douban rating rose from 8.6 to 9.1; 4K restoration premiered at the 27th Shanghai International Film Festival⁵^•⁶

Spoilers

Plot

Xu Lingjun was born into a wealthy family, but his parents' marriage failed and his father, Xu Jingyou, left for the United States before 1949; his mother soon died of illness, leaving him to grow up alone in China.¹^•² In 1957, because of his family background, he was labeled a rightist and sent to labor at the Chilechuan pasture in the northwest. Lonely and despairing, he was cared for by the local herders: Elder Dong nailed a door curtain against the cold wind for him, Elder Dong's wife brought him hot noodles, and Guo Pianzi found ways to protect his safety.¹

Li Xiuzhi, a young rural woman who had fled famine from Sichuan, arrived at the pasture with no relatives. Guo Pianzi brought her to Xu Lingjun, and the two married. She did not reject him for his rightist label; the couple repaired a dilapidated hut and had a son, Qingqing.¹ After the Gang of Four were smashed, Xu's rightist designation was corrected and he returned to the classroom as a teacher for the pasture's children.¹

The frame story is set in 1980, when Xu Jingyou, now a Chinese-American chemical-industry tycoon, returns to China and meets his son at the Beijing Hotel after more than thirty years, hoping to take him to America to inherit the family business.⁷^•⁸ Told largely in flashback, the film follows Xu's memories of hardship and of the happiness he found in marriage and herding. In the end he refuses his father's invitation, telling him that the land his sweat has soaked, the friends who shared his hardships, his wife, and the root of his life are all in China.¹^•⁹

Interpretation

Commentators have read the film as Xie Jin's way of resolving the generational and ideological conflict of a "scar literature" subject through patriotism. The Harvard Film Archive's program note observed that Xie, whose previous film had drawn controversy, brought Chinese patriotism to the fore just as the Communist Party under Deng Xiaoping was turning from Maoism toward nationalism.¹⁵ Compared with Legend of Tianyun Mountain and Hibiscus Town, The Herdsman reduces the depiction of the era's political turmoil and gives more space to the texture of Xu Lingjun's daily life.¹⁶ The 1905.com appreciation notes that the film enlarges the story's key attitude, that reflection on historical wounds should also uncover uplifting strength, and that the character of Xiuzhi, a minor figure in the original story, was built up through detail into a hardworking, strong-willed rural woman.¹⁴

From story to screenplay

Zhang Xianliang (1936–2014) had himself been labeled a rightist in the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign for publishing the poem Da Feng Ge, and spent twenty-two years in farm labor before being rehabilitated after the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1979. Spirit and Flesh, published in 1980 and written with himself as a prototype, was widely noticed on publication; unlike his other fiction, which stressed the estrangement between intellectuals and peasants, it emphasized a return to the common people and was suffused with warmth.¹⁰

Xie Jin (1923–2008), a state first-class director and a leading figure of China's third generation of directors, decided to adapt the story after completing Legend of Tianyun Mountain (1979). Because that film had stirred wide controversy, many people worried that another "rightist" subject would cause trouble; the studio head Xu Sangchu wrote to the mayor of Shanghai to argue for the project, and the script was also revised before shooting could proceed.⁷ Xie Jin's stated aim was to dig out the positive elements of the work and show audiences the beauty of heart, character, and vision hidden among the Chinese people.¹¹

The film's rights involved a detour. Changchun Film Studio had wanted to adapt the story, which had won a national award for outstanding short stories, but Ningxia's deputy party secretary Chen Bing, who had helped Zhang's rehabilitation, directed him to hand the property to Xie Jin instead. Zhang and the well-known writer Li Zhun (李准) then spent a month together writing the screenplay, published in New Film Ideas in September 1981, and Xie Jin and Li Zhun arrived in Yinchuan with an eighteen-person crew on May 11, 1981 to scout locations around the city and in Pingluo.¹²

Production

The film was shot on location at the Shandan military horse farm in Gansu and in Beijing.⁷ Xie Jin cast two newcomers in the leads: Zhu Shimao and Cong Shan, who was a first-year student at the Central Academy of Drama in 1981 and for whom Li Xiuzhi was a first film role.²^•⁴ The two leads, ten years apart in age, spent a month living in a remote pastoral area with the herders, eating, sleeping, and riding with them to build believable characters; Xie Jin also required the young actors to keep daily creative journals and to work out the subtext behind every line.¹¹^•¹³

Niu Ben, a veteran actor who had worked with Xie Jin since The Red Detachment of Women (1960), played the warm, humorous herder Guo Pianzi, whose matchmaking line "Lao Xu, do you want a wife?" later became famous. Niu Ben initially declined the role because he was shooting a television series, and accepted only after Xie Jin persuaded his wife to visit the set.⁴

The cinematography used long takes and deep focus to show the breadth and desolation of the frontier pasture, set to music with grassland character; the theme song was "Chilechuan," sung by Liu Bingyi.¹⁴^•¹

Reception and awards

Released in April–May 1982, the film caused a strong response across the country, with viewers responding in reviews, poems, and letters, and magazines such as Popular Cinema and Film Art hosting discussion columns.¹² Its admissions exceeded 130 million, and the question of whether Xu should stay or leave sparked a nationwide discussion on "how to love one's country."⁴^•⁷

The film won the Ministry of Culture's 1982 Outstanding Film award, the 6th Hundred Flowers Award for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Niu Ben), the 3rd Golden Rooster Award for Best Supporting Actor (Niu Ben) and Best Editing (Zhou Dingwen), and was named one of the top ten Chinese-language films at the 2nd Hong Kong Film Awards in 1983.¹^•² Cong Shan was voted the most popular young screen image of the year in a China Youth Daily poll with 600,000 ballots.⁴ The film was also shown abroad, including a UCLA retrospective and a 1985 Los Angeles screening at which the Los Angeles Times praised Xie Jin's "intimacy and grace" and noted that the film honestly lets its hero admit that, had his father come five years earlier, he would have been tempted to accept.⁸

Later revival

In late 2019, thirty-seven years after release, a clip of Guo Pianzi's matchmaking scene went viral on Douyin, where it was played more than 20 million times, and viewers drawn by the clips went on to watch the whole film. The Douban rating rose from 8.6 to 9.1, with viewers born in the 1990s forming the main audience; commentators attributed the revival to nostalgia for relationships not measured by money or calculation.⁵^•⁴ A 4K restoration was selected for the 27th Shanghai International Film Festival in May 2025, where it received its world premiere, and the Hong Kong Film Archive screened the restored version in November 2025.⁶^•²

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1980s › Released 1980 to 1985

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 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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