“Hibiscus Town” is a 1986 film that depicts the constantly changing social structure of peasant life in the period before and during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. The film examines peasant life in a small town in China, Hibiscus Town, which serves as a microcosm of China where we can observe how the momentum of the Cultural Revolution moved to redefine and transform class boundaries. “Hibiscus Town” chronicles the life of Hu Yuyin, the film’s protagonist, and how her new label as a class enemy dramatically changes her circumstances. The film begins by introducing us to Yuyin and her husband Guigui as farmers whose hard work and long hours spent preparing bean curd have allowed them to amass modest financial success within their town. However, their success coincides with the arrival of a work team tasked with assessing Hibiscus Town's inequalities, who decide that Yuyin and Guigui are guilty of being rich farmers. This new label of “rich peasant” severely affects Yuyin and Guigui's status in their community, and they are subjected to sudden scrutiny and humiliation. Guigui's final suicide leaves Yuyin alone to deal with her recently diminished position in society, and the rest of the story follows her as she adjusts to her new role as a "bad element" in society. At the same time, the film also analyzes how the city's inhabitants are affected by the resulting power struggles and conflicts that occur with the onset of the Cultural Revolution. “Hibiscus Town” begins in 1964, two years before the start of the Cultural Revolution. in 1966 and shortly after the end of the Great Leap Forward, which lasted three years from 1958 to 1960. The Great Leap Forward was a program of ma...... half of the document ......ganda responsibility, and also support Yuyin in her pursuit of financial success. New movements are able to legitimize their actions and rise to power by casting local leadership in a negative light, which is exactly what the working group does in the film. Interestingly, the leadership of the working group is then similarly deposed during the Cultural Revolution by the poor peasants and the Red Guards, which further highlights the tendency of new movements to eliminate existing leadership to achieve political success. “Hibiscus Town” is a testament to the volatile circumstances that peasants in rural China faced during the years leading up to and during the Cultural Revolution under the direction of Chairman Mao. It sheds light on some of the challenges China faced as a newly communist society and shows the effects of radical political campaigns on relatively harmless citizens..