Context:
Based on short story by Liu Heng (link to a translation below).
Zhang's CR experience of labour in a textile factory can be seen as informing some parts of this film.
The Film:
Zhang makes typical use of eye-popping colour cinematography, especially helped by several set pieces with the colour dyes.
It is possible to read the film's plot in many ways, including on Freudian terms, but also allegorically: the cruel old man might represent Confucianist traditions, and the blank-faced seemingly intrinsically evil boy the more modern Maoist dictatorship and the Cultural Revolution (in which of course Mao encouraged the youths to commit the anarchic revolts he was after). The central couple are then torn between these two miserable options.
Reception:
References:
http://www.clockwatching.net/~vroom/zyimou.html
http://www.filmsufi.com/2012/09/ju-dou-zhang-yimou-and-yang-fengliang.html
http://www.academia.edu/9192367/Liu_Heng_Dogshit_Food_trans._Sabina_Knight (Original story)
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