The Sichuan Concubines (1994)

The Sichuan Concubines 1994 / 罌粟 1994 /

In the southwest China there is a village in which villagers grow poppies for the village's lord without knowing why. He's in fact a crazy opium addict and sell it, but people don't know that. The lord is waiting for a ship to come and collect the opium, but for some reason the ship this year is not arriving and the economy of the village will get worse and worse. Meanwhile the lord, who is sterile, will pay Chen Mao, a village worker, to get one of his concubines pregnant. Chen Mao likes the sister of the lord, but will use the money he got to leave the village seeking for the husband of a farmer who has been abandoned with three kids that are starving to death. Once back, he will finally try to reach the girl he likes, who, however, is just back from a seven days trip with a robber who steal rice to give it to the poor, who changed her forever.