# The Story of Qiu Ju (秋菊打官司)
**The Story of Qiu Ju** (秋菊打官司) is a 1992 Chinese drama film directed by [Zhang Yimou](https://www.edgepedia.org/zhang-yimou) and starring [Gong Li](https://www.edgepedia.org/gong-li), adapted from the writer Chen Yuanbin's novella *Wan Jia Su Song* (《万家诉讼》). It follows a pregnant peasant woman in rural Shaanxi who pursues an apology, which she calls a "shuofa" (说法, roughly "an explanation" or "a saying"), from the village chief who injured her husband, taking her complaint from the township government up through the county and the city. The film won the [Golden Lion](https://www.edgepedia.org/golden-lion) at the 49th Venice International Film Festival and became a lasting reference point in Chinese discussions of law, rural society, and individual rights.[1](https://www.bjiff.com/da/dag_dsyjbjgjdyj/bjzy/zyypjs/xfjd_11184/202111/t20211105_118520.html) • [2](https://wyb.chinawriter.com.cn/Pad/content/202208/03/content65996.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | October 1992, mainland China; directed by Zhang Yimou, starring Gong Li[3](https://www3.jianshu.com/p/234f8a69547c) |
| Source | Chen Yuanbin's novella *Wan Jia Su Song*, written in late 1990 and first published in *Zhongguo Zuojia* (Chinese Writers) in 1991, issue 3[2](https://wyb.chinawriter.com.cn/Pad/content/202208/03/content65996.html) |
| Screenwriter | Liu Heng[4](https://dzb.whb.cn/imgPath/2024-08-03/80803.pdf) |
| Awards | Golden Lion, 49th Venice International Film Festival; Best Feature Film, 13th Golden Rooster Awards; Most Popular Film, Vancouver International Film Festival[5](https://lawyer.110.com/2628878/article/show/type/1/aid/569980/) |
| Style | Documentary-style realism: candid street filming, hidden cameras, non-professional actors, natural light[6](https://ny.zdline.cn/h5/article/detail.do?artId=138739) |
| Cultural footprint | The phrase "tao ge shuofa" (讨个说法, "to demand an explanation") entered the June 2005 edition of the *Xiandai Hanyu Cidian* (Modern Chinese Dictionary)[7](https://fzb.zjol.com.cn/gb/node2/node802/node240379/node389145/node389161/userobject15ai5289366.html) |
| Scholarly legacy | Su Li's 1996 essay "Qiu Ju's Puzzle" founded an influential law-and-literature debate in Chinese legal studies[8](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25317498) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
In a village in northwest China, Qiu Ju's husband Wan Qinglai quarrels with the village chief over the family's contracted land and is kicked in a sensitive place, leaving him unable to work the fields. Qiu Ju, several months pregnant, first asks the chief to apologize. When he refuses, she takes her complaint to the township government, where an official surnamed Li mediates: the chief agrees to pay economic compensation but remains unrepentant, and a slighting gesture when Qiu Ju collects the money angers her into continuing. She travels to the county and then the city, repeatedly filing petitions and seeking help from a lawyer.[1](https://www.bjiff.com/da/dag_dsyjbjgjdyj/bjzy/zyypjs/xfjd_11184/202111/t20211105_118520.html) • [5](https://lawyer.110.com/2628878/article/show/type/1/aid/569980/)
The ending turns her goal inside out. A medical examination shows the husband suffered a minor injury warranting administrative punishment, and the village chief is arrested and sentenced to 15 days of administrative detention. As he is taken away, Qiu Ju protests that she only wanted an explanation, not an arrest, and she watches the police car leave the village puzzled by how the law has worked.[8](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25317498) In a final turn, Qiu Ju goes into difficult labor, and the chief, setting the feud aside, helps organize her rescue; her family, grateful, drops the case.[9](https://fxy.aufe.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/1a/40/d76926464b14916891894dddeea8/2a13096d-bec3-4a6c-8fa6-154f5babf475.pdf)
## Origins and production
Chen Yuanbin wrote *Wan Jia Su Song* at the end of 1990, and it appeared in *Zhongguo Zuojia* in 1991. Zhang Yimou read the novella and moved quickly to adapt it; the screenwriter Liu Heng later recalled the project among his best-known film scripts. In 2006 Chen expanded the story with three additional parts, *Qiu Ju Holds a Meeting*, *Qiu Ju Fights Fakes*, and *Qiu Ju Kills*, published together as the collection *Qiu Ju Chuanqi* (《秋菊传奇》), which in turn became the basis for the 2022 television series *The Story of Xing Fu* (幸福到万家).[2](https://wyb.chinawriter.com.cn/Pad/content/202208/03/content65996.html) • [4](https://dzb.whb.cn/imgPath/2024-08-03/80803.pdf)
**A production crisis over film gauge.** To pursue realism the crew shot on Super 16mm, but the film authorities had just issued a ban on releasing films blown up from 16mm. The producer Ma Fengguo personally lobbied the head of the film bureau, vouching for the technical quality, and the release went ahead. He also sent the negative to Japan for processing and used a distinctive half-black-edged subtitle technique.[10](https://yule.360.com/detail/4847891)
## Style
The film marked a break from Zhang Yimou's earlier work. Where *Red Sorghum*, *[Ju Dou](https://www.edgepedia.org/ju-dou)*, and *Raise the Red Lantern* used saturated color, formal composition, and Republican-era settings, *The Story of Qiu Ju* moved to the contemporary present with a plain, rural realist aesthetic.[6](https://ny.zdline.cn/h5/article/detail.do?artId=138739) Critics have described it as carrying the influence of [Italian neorealism](https://www.edgepedia.org/italian-neorealism).[11](https://china.piscomed.com/index.php/jytd/article/view/10914)
The documentary method was deliberate. The crew filmed on real streets with real passersby rather than recruited extras, at times hiding the camera, including inside cardboard boxes, so that people on the street would not notice they were being filmed. Roughly half the scenes used such candid shooting, with three cameras working simultaneously; directors gave no precise shot lists in advance, and performers did not know the exact camera positions. The result traded polished lighting and composition for unguarded, everyday images.[12](https://www.pinshiwen.com/waiwen/yssx/20190721155563.html) • [6](https://ny.zdline.cn/h5/article/detail.do?artId=138739) The candid street footage also brought consequences: the production was sued and spent years in litigation over it.[6](https://ny.zdline.cn/h5/article/detail.do?artId=138739)
A recurring musical motif, the Wanhwanqiang (碗碗腔) opera tune sung as Qiu Ju sets out on each journey, structures the film like verse, marking each escalation from village to township to county to city.[6](https://ny.zdline.cn/h5/article/detail.do?artId=138739)
## Reception and cultural footprint
The film won the Golden Lion at the 49th Venice International Film Festival, the Golden Rooster Award for Best Feature Film, and the Most Popular Film award at the Vancouver International Film Festival.[5](https://lawyer.110.com/2628878/article/show/type/1/aid/569980/) The image of the pregnant Qiu Ju trudging from office to office became a widely recognized symbol of awakening rights consciousness in China's legal modernization of the 1990s.[5](https://lawyer.110.com/2628878/article/show/type/1/aid/569980/) The phrase "tao ge shuofa" entered everyday usage and was added to the June 2005 edition of the *Modern Chinese Dictionary*.[7](https://fzb.zjol.com.cn/gb/node2/node802/node240379/node389145/node389161/userobject15ai5289366.html)
The film has remained a touchstone for later works. Commentators comparing Zhang Yimou's 2024 release *Article 20* (第二十条), another law-themed film, treat *The Story of Qiu Ju* as the earlier attempt to popularize the newly enacted Administrative Procedure Law through the story of a citizen suing an official.[13](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_26462671) Feng Xiaogang's *[I Am Not Madame Bovary](https://www.edgepedia.org/i-am-not-madame-bovary)* (2016) has likewise been read as a successor about a rural woman's long petitioning journey.[14](https://www.nxfy.gov.cn/fywh/gyfgfc/201803/t20180329_4483006.html)
## "Qiu Ju's Puzzle" in legal scholarship
The film's most durable afterlife has been in Chinese legal theory. Su Li's 1996 essay "Qiu Ju's Puzzle and Shan Gangye's Tragedy" used the film to ask what a modern, rights-centered legal order brings to rural China and at what cost, and the essay is credited with establishing a law-and-literature research paradigm in China; the film became a classic case that legal scholars have returned to for three decades.[8](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25317498) The core puzzle is the mismatch between Qiu Ju's request and the legal system's response: she wanted an apology mediated within village life, and the system instead delivered a punishment she never sought.[8](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25317498)
Other scholars have read the film through the tension between ritual-based rural order and state law. A 2026 study in the *Open Journal of Legal Science* treats the film as a portrait of the budding but frustrated idea of rule of law in rural society, arguing that in China's government-driven legal construction, ritual governance remains deeply rooted and that combining it with formal law is the direction of legal modernization.[15](https://pdf.hanspub.org/ojls_2924182.pdf)
Translation has itself been part of the debate. The literary scholar Zhang Xudong argued that the English subtitle renders "shuofa" as "justice", a reading he called a misreading of a term rooted in everyday village life rather than in legal legitimacy; on his account the film's narrative serves not rule of law but the unwritten norms of rural community.[16](https://www.opentimes.cn/html/Abstract/20489.html) American legal scholars Jerome A. Cohen and Joan Lebold Cohen, writing on whether Qiu Ju received good legal assistance, argued that the film's core narrative idealizes relations between villagers and officials, and that after failed mediation Qiu Ju could in principle have filed a civil suit directly with the court.[16](https://www.opentimes.cn/html/Abstract/20489.html)
## References
1. [秋菊打官司 1992, Beijing International Film Festival archive](https://www.bjiff.com/da/dag_dsyjbjgjdyj/bjzy/zyypjs/xfjd_11184/202111/t20211105_118520.html)
2. [从"秋菊"到"何幸福"：发掘经典文学故事历久弥新的魅力, 文艺报](https://wyb.chinawriter.com.cn/Pad/content/202208/03/content65996.html)
3. [《秋菊打官司》影评：为何这部经典至今仍被热议？, Jianshu](https://www3.jianshu.com/p/234f8a69547c)
4. [刘恒与刘德濒对谈, 文汇报 (2024-08-03)](https://dzb.whb.cn/imgPath/2024-08-03/80803.pdf)
5. [京平视角：拆迁律师眼中的《秋菊打官司》及其当前意义](https://lawyer.110.com/2628878/article/show/type/1/aid/569980/)
6. [《秋菊打官司》：土味、朴实但善美, 三联生活周刊](https://ny.zdline.cn/h5/article/detail.do?artId=138739)
7. [被"拷打"出的法治进步, 浙江法制报 (2006)](https://fzb.zjol.com.cn/gb/node2/node802/node240379/node389145/node389161/userobject15ai5289366.html)
8. [苏力：秋菊的困惑和山杠爷的悲剧, 澎湃新闻](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_25317498)
9. [法治与电影教学材料, 安徽财经大学法学院](https://fxy.aufe.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/1a/40/d76926464b14916891894dddeea8/2a13096d-bec3-4a6c-8fa6-154f5babf475.pdf)
10. [马逢国30年后揭秘《秋菊打官司》, 360娱乐](https://yule.360.com/detail/4847891)
11. [电影《秋菊打官司》的视听语言分析, 教育天地](https://china.piscomed.com/index.php/jytd/article/view/10914)
12. [《秋菊打官司》纪实风格分析, 评诗文网](https://www.pinshiwen.com/waiwen/yssx/20190721155563.html)
13. [从《秋菊打官司》到《第二十条》，礼法传统遭遇哪些现代困境, 澎湃新闻](https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_26462671)
14. [从"秋菊打官司"到"我不是潘金莲", 宁夏法院网](https://www.nxfy.gov.cn/fywh/gyfgfc/201803/t20180329_4483006.html)
15. [付寒月：乡土社会礼与法的现代转型, Open Journal of Legal Science (2026)](https://pdf.hanspub.org/ojls_2924182.pdf)
16. [秋菊的困惑与解惑, 开放时代 (2019年第1期)](https://www.opentimes.cn/html/Abstract/20489.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 1990 to 1994 › Titles K to W*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license