On Penance and Progress:
Thoughts on Tian Zhuangzhuang's Horse Thief
By: J. Cuasay
(For permission to use contact the author at nasubi@juno.com)
The prospect of talking about Chinese film with the aim to analyze both textually and contextually is a very broad and fertile ground for research. At the same time, the theoretical space it opens up offers its own set of problems. Namely, one can never be certain that what is uncovered as knowledge, would hold true outside of its own context - this particular class in Ohio, tempered by my own hybrid treatment and upbringing at this particular moment. Does the analysis concur with Tian's or some other Chinese critic? Does it need to?
In some respects, these issues are nothing terribly new to western film theory. What is new (at least historically) is the movement away from theory as an abstract discipline, and a turn toward a culturally relevant point of view. In Hong Xia's Chinese Film Theory 1979-1989, he points to this aspect as a major differentiation between Chinese and Western orientation in theory. Though Chinese film practice and theoretical contemplation 1) embarrassingly lagged behind the West and 2) was influenced greatly by America from the 1920's to the 1940's and Russia from the 1940's - 1950's and by the French New Wave - this led to a hybrid yet distinct kind of theory and practice. A type of insularity based on a constant tension of how to deal with the components without and the differences within its own borders. Hong Xia's work identifies 5 phases of its development - but it is truly in the final phase, the New Era from 1979-1989 (from the opening of China's doors to the burst of China's 5th Generation) that a small window of unique Chinese films and theory develops (Xia, 1994, 7).
The Cultural Revolution stands as the center period. The "ten years of chaos" during which film production, creativity and thought were at a standstill and its potential workers tortured or driven out to the countryside. Prior to this upheaval, Xia calls Chinese film and theory a mixture of Hollywood models combined with Russian-Socialist film theory. From 1949 and the establishment of the People's Republic of China, there flowed 17 years in which the state took hold of film as a tool for propaganda. Xia points out that every single major historical event during these years is captured in one form or another on film. Thus, strengthening the ties of politics and image, film and history (11). At the same time the films reflect China's semi-colonial status and anxiety about its own self-definition. Though Hong Xia's work does not specifically address this issue, Chris Berry's article A Nation T(w/o)o Chinese Cinema(s) and Nationhood(s) does. I will return to this point later.
During the revival period, 1976-1979, the West was moving ahead with some of its most prominent theories of the modern age while China was recovering from its ten year set back. At this point, China acknowledged its sluggishness and sought out its 4 modernizations. The challenge to theory and practice was how to be critical of the Cultural Revolution and still be able to connect back to China's past with some kind of pride. The solution was often one of nostalgia without a deeper artistic commitment (19).
It wasn't until the screening of Troubled Laughter directed by Yang Yanjin and Deng Yinin and Little Flower directed by Zhang Zheng and Huang Jianzhong in 1979 with the simultaneous publication of Bai Jincheng's "Throwing Away the Walking Stick of Drama" and "The Modernization of Cinematic Language" by Zhang Nuanxin and Li Tuo that a new theory and practice developed (20).
From 1979-1989 China could be said to forcibly enter the modern era and address the international character of film issues both from without and within. Xia divides this period into two, 1979-1984 and 1985-1989. The first period is one of introspection and self-examination. Following the cues of Bazin's What is Cinema? and Kracauer's Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, China eventually developed an ontological approach to film.
By exploring the nature of film itself, theorists and practitioners would uproot and reevaluate age old concepts concerning theatricality of film, the literary quality of film, the concept of film, the nationalization of film, and the issues of tradition and innovation. As Xia puts it, the two phases are distinguished by the former "going into film itself"(22) as an ontological approach and "going beyond film itself" (49) into cultural studies.
The latter phase coincides with the 5th Generation's emergence while the former encapsulates an integration of foreign concepts applied, argued and disseminated through the theoretical and practical film institution. The movement is circular but not repetitive - foreign concepts from without stimulating concepts within. New approaches from within to address problems from without, including in particular, the problems brought up in dealing with the outside.
Though the arguments of theatre versus those of literature in regards to reforming film concepts are posed as oppositions to each other, both pointed to the stark lack in Chinese film. It lacked in either form or content depending on which side was taken. The deficiency was not to be made up by the continuous deadlock of ideas within, but by turning to ideas from without, those stimulated by the French New Wave. This "new concept of film" though never explicitly stated (probably as much for Chinese pride as abstract oversight) was an adoption of Bazin and his realist film theory (32).
At this point, regardless of cultural pride, China falls in line with the rest of the international community. And it is here that the question of national and cultural attributes returns. On one hand, there are those such as Li Shaobai, a film historiographer in China who states, "The seventy-five year development of film in China is a process of nationalization; therefore the need for nationalization should not be questioned because film is international" (39).
This viewpoint suggests that national forces and the cultural attributes that adhere to such a stance are intrinsic to the production of film. This basic tenet is also an assumption that is built into the heuristic inquiry of this class. But what is not thoroughly exposed by this convenience is the history behind the formation of national identity, the power and knowledge put into service to maintain it, and the manner in which differences and anomalies are handled.
The paradox about the 5th Generation breaks precisely on these lines. While bringing forth diversity and a creative maverick-like approach to filming, internationally or otherwise, the 5th Generation simultaneously invokes and gets itself wrapped up in the China it represents - as if that China, as a referent, is some kind of stable and singular given or unknown to be discovered or uncovered. It is not. Nor is it that simple.
Chris Berry's article taken from Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema traces China's formation as a discursive entity and its relation to subjective identity vis-a-vis Chinese cinema. The point of departure for his essay is a quote from Rey Chow's book Primitive Passions where Chow refers to Tiananmen Square as the "moment of shock [where] Chinese people are degendered and become simply Chinese." (Chow, 1991, 82)
What Berry analyzes is the idea of "simply Chinese." Firstly, there is the historical realization that the People's Republic of China came into existence in 1949. This was directly related to military circumstances and bore traces of it in the political structure that was to follow. It also placed this nation in a particular relationship with the West - one of at least semi-colonial prospects in a world turning more and more toward free market capitalism. Secondly, as a direct result from this imposition, there is a glaring contradiction between the idea of China as it relates on a cultural level to its people and China as the politically and historically constructed nation-state for the People's Republic. (Note too the similar use of these words by both Taiwan and Mainland China.)
Further along in the history of China there is the dark twist of the Cultural Revolution and its recapitulations at Tiananmen. Again, the role of the military is set at odds with the People, regardless of how they are defined. In both instances, China's cinematic response was to reinvoke past times of heroic valor and portray the People's Liberation Army not as "soldiers who fire on people, but instead soldiers who work together with people and on their behalf to build the People's Republic itself" (Berry, 1994, 45). This rewriting and blurring of history raises the level of cultural and historical origins on to the plane of myth making itself. Origin becomes pointless and up for grabs.
Berry points to the tensions on the level of language first, and then filmic practice between Taiwan and Mainland China. Both claim separately to be the one China, and both exert that assertion through their use of language - doubly: Mandarin for the mainstream political and international arena, and their own particular dialects for intrinsic ethnic pride. The same is true with Hong Kong - playing itself and its identity against the mainland, displaying a different face in the same play with the rest of the world.
But what I find most fascinating is the motivation behind this activity which ties the issue of nationhood with that of cinema. Both are related in the manner in which they attempt to assert and maintain themselves. And this is not only observable in China, but holds for Western interests as well. To be successful in a conservatively stable way, a nation-state must contain or deny difference and block change (49).
The promise of identity conferred through nationhood is a bit of poisoned fruit. For the "third world" it initially signifies a positive movement because it is taken to mean an assertion against imperial domination. Its "nationalism is that of revolution and liberation; it assumes that the nation is a pre-existing given, waiting to be liberated from the yoke of foreign oppression" (50).
But in a larger historical picture, what emerges is that a nation is an act of will. That is to say it is propelled by the interests of one group or imagined community against other types of groups with other interests. This viewpoint was initially put forward by Ernest Renan's address "What is a Nation" (50). At this moment, it seems forward looking and productive to back the nationalist cry while at the same time seeing it as the colonialist or anti-colonialist call to arms. In the next phase, the motivating force of nationalism takes a different spin. Once a nation-state is formed as an organ of a now dominant grouping, it starts to maintain the power of this dominant group at the expense of the other elements of the "people" in whose name it claims to rule (52).
At this point, the break up of the former Soviet Union, the dissolution between European states, and the struggles in the Middle East also show this same type of fissure, as do ethnic differences in our own country. Often subsumed under pluralism and cultural diversity, one can still champion the idea of a stable nation-state even if the political structure to support such a myth is no longer in place. However, in the postmodern sense of seeking a reality closer to the way things are, a different type of course needs to be taken.
This particular crisis is precisely where both modern theory and art practices as well as political and economic issues both internally and globally are locked in ferment. And it is precisely this figuring that Tian Zhuangzhuang's film finds itself looped as well. Set in 1923 in Tibet, Horse Thief eludes yet implies the historical invasion of Tibet by China in 1949 and opens up that whole can of worms. Picking Tibet itself aligns the topic with several points.
Tibet is one of the borderline dissidents in China's backyard. Its history independently predates Chinese influences. It also predates China in terms of contact and trade with outsiders, including Britain, whose alliance helped Tibet prosper independently. 1923 was just ten years after the Tibetans had expelled the Chinese from their borders and declared their independence (Chan, 1994, 30-31).
Although it has been noted that the censors came down hard on Horse Thief, it is curious to note that no one ever really explored why. Conjecture had it that it must have been embarrassing to portray Tibet in such a drastically impoverished state in stark contrast to the "prosperous, rapidly modernizing autonomous region that figures in official propaganda" (Stanbrook, 1987, 294). Another was its depiction of Buddhist rituals, particularly that of celestial burial involving vultures devouring a human body hacked to pieces. However, that is a matter of cultural perspective. Canadian film reviews at the Montreal Festival gave it high marks, as with Tian's On the Hunting Ground for its gory details, provided you weren't squeamish (Strat, 1987, 24). While others chose to look at these ethnic customs as mystical, surreal, or avant garde. The simplest Chinese reading was that Tian received letters "criticizing [him] for wasting government money for making films they didn't understand" (Sklar, 1994, 37).
Textually speaking, the film is reminiscent of Sergei Pardjanov, showing an astute perception of rituals and the everyday. The camera work is much more aloof than the spasms of Pardjanov's Forgotten Ancestors, but the use of musical motifs layered in repetitive nodes in conjunction with fades and rotations to convey the ecstatic are especially noteworthy. Composed of little over 50 scenes, a majority are spectacle and ritual, only 5 contain dialog. Finally, the use of the somewhat outdated letterbox mode, brought about a widening of vision on religious ritual adding sumptuous detail to the hypnotic effect of the spectacle itself. The use of nonprofessional actors in a local area with a very loose narrative is not often done in Chinese cinema, but it shows innovation and makes use of the special qualities endowed in film and the eccentricities of non-theatrical personalities.
The critical response to a film as eccentric as this and to Chinese films of the 5th Generation in general continuously cross this double lined zone: Film as art. Film as cultural representation of a nation, the issues of the particular displayed between internal Chinese affairs and the international domain of cinema, cutting across the issue of Tibet as a related area of interest with China, the rest of the world, and on its own terms. Strangely enough, Tian comments on his work as well as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou as being a strain for an aesthetic more than anything else. "It's not a problem with myself only, but my whole generation. We were pursuing something that was on the surface. We were formalists. looking for formal beauty" (Lopate, 1994, 62). It was film as art before the issues of politicizing and national infusion. And that is both a strength and a weakness.
At the same time, to comment on the national consciousness, one was also doubly bound to address the monolithic image of China with its disruptive and contradictory history of oppression so recent in memory. The escape to the past, to the rural areas, to anything but the present allowed for veiled talk and plenty of ambiguity.
In Horse Thief, the use of particularly obscure or colorful rituals within a marginalized community, offers a similar sense of combined belief in a shaky and ill-weaved stability. Tian in Sklar's interview states, "I'm interested in people who have lost their beliefs. All these years the people believed in Communism. Now their values have been turned upside down and they no longer believe in it...Like the shot [] with the papers flying in the wind, I was trying to contrast certain Buddhist beliefs with the reality of China" (63).
My reading of the film stresses not so much the classic drama of the individual at odds with the community that exiles him and his struggle to reintegrate himself. Rather, it is the story of a father in a family - a particular social and economic grouping, that is forced out of a community. The community then picks up and abandons him and his family. The father loses his first son, and brings forth another - outside the original community. And in the process of protecting and insuring the life of this son (innocent of his father's crimes) corrupts his wife, who joins him in stealing horses in order to escape an oncoming storm. In this radical progressivism to reintegrate and originate a new life, Norbu, the father, returns to the village to seek redemption. He is shot and killed. He returns knowing and wanting this to occur, so that in his words, "His son can live."
Like the monolithic image of China then, it is the story of erecting and maintaining a stable identity and history that takes place at odds with and in the midst of a larger community of histories. Norbu's stability is at the expense of the village and surroundings on which he preys as a thief.
The blending of everyday actions endowed by the nuance of indigenous peoples during ritualistic practices lends to a tremendously vivid ethnopoetics of documentary proportions. Striking examples are the use of barley, the standard staple of the region, to make tsanpas: a dough-like mixture of barley and water mixed by hand in fingerbowls and pinched off into small balls to be eaten by hand. The simplistic action itself reiterates the circlular motions of the hands that turn prayer wheels round or rock small hand drums back and forth. Other close-up shots reveal butter sculptures - butter as additive to the staple diet, and then butter as simple food elevated to the level of ritual. Finally, there is the Shoton (Yogurt) festival and horse races, the blessing of the sacred goats, followed later by the ritual bathing in the river.
As Norbu is shown partaking in each of these important rituals, there is a commentary on his identity as it relates him to his family and their life to that of the community. At the Shoton Festival, Norbu takes part in the rituals side by side with people whose dress indicates they are of higher or more respectful ranking. Yet, only he voices the prayers for good luck and blessings. Ironically, in the silence of the papers blowing in the wind, the villagers and Norbu are about to suffer terribly. Later, he partakes in the ritual of bathing and yet the enactment is stilted. He washes only his face and arms and then proceeds to wash his son properly. His wife kneels down in proper fashion and begins to wash her hair. A happy and playful moment for the family prior to its upset is prefigured and separated from the rest of the community when the camera pulls back to reveal the family at the river alone. Normally, this would have been a communal event, the one time of the year when the water was warm enough and clean enough for this ritual. And the one time of the year that this fact could be celebrated through community bathing. Finally, exiled from the village, Norbu partakes in a ritual with a neighboring village during a period of bad harvest and blight. He places an effigy of death in the river and shares in its assault with stones, getting hit in the head and shot at with a gun. The movement is thus from participant to victim. This seems to suggest that he is the Other of these rituals, a full member at the point of negativity. Even in his thieving, his accomplice, Norwe, does not share his exile, but remains with the village and dies with it. It is Norbu in particular, who is singled out along with his family and driven out of the community.
During his exile, Norbu partakes in rituals with other villages and peoples. He is allowed access to the outskirts and interior of Buddhist Temples. In short, he is allowed to live on the plane of rituals - the symbolic system that embodies the value system of his community. He is allowed to be in contact with the symbolic on that intimate a level precisely because he is no longer a member of the community. His grandmother calls him a river of evil that no one will touch. And yet he embraces every facet of the community's rituals - floating through them like a ghost.
Strangely enough, the truncated sky burial scenes left enough of a mark on me to center my reading around them. The film obviously opens with an allusion to a sky burial. The components of which are a monk (in this case a whole group of monks) chanting, smoke (to signal the sacred birds) and vultures. For the vultures, it is important that they come down from the sky to feed on the hacked up carcass and fly back up. The belief is that when they fly back to the high mountains and deposit their droppings, they will carry the soul of the dead up to heaven.
Immediately following this scene, Norbu and Nowre, steal a horse. In contrast to the opening scene, they travel across a seemingly barren landscape. Where the monks are seated and inactive, the two are upright. The monks are at peace, practically motionless and at one with their situation. The vultures fly upwards against a strong white background. In contrast to this, Norbu and Nowre scramble about the ground alien-like, skulking in the dark with their backs to the camera. The first moment we glimpse a close-up of Norbu is when he turns to the camera as the light from the tent catches him in his act, his crime. He immediately cuts the tent cord with his sword - toppling the centerpole of this communal dwelling before riding off into the darkness. Thus, he is identified in an anti-social act, unable to face other members and unable to stay within their structure, even to the point of cutting off the supporting ties.
Again, at the headman's funeral, in which the most graphic and full disclosure of the funeral ritual is observed, Norbu is placed in the scene with his back to the camera. Initially, this is the first time we see Norbu, alone, upright and in the light of day. He is looking at the ceremony and the viewer loses sight of Norbu as the spectacle takes over. A single monk smoking a pipe with one hand and ringing a bell with another is sitting beside the hacked corpse. The smoke has signaled the vultures. The headman, whose funeral this is, being a virtuous person, is thus receiving a proper funeral. The scene speaks its elements, smoke, bells, monk, birds, a shot of a chorten that houses art and religious pieces. Apart from all this, onlooker to all this, is Norbu, whose back is all we see before the smoke covers everything up.
In contrast to these two "righteous" burials are the death of Norbu's son, Tashi and the death of Norbu's grandmother. Tashi, a child, presumably suffers and dies as a result of having to live in exile from the village, its heat, food, and shelter. Whether he is innocent or not, his funeral confers upon him a comment on his spiritual status. Unlike the two sky burials, Tashi is left by Norbu on the ground in the snow. This is quite possibly the most extreme opposite of the ideal expressed by the celestial burial. Traditionally speaking, a child should be placed into an earthenware jar and stored in a dwelling. Or, as is common for villagers of low rank, be given river burials (hence, they are forced to remain on the earthly plane of existence, not carried up on wings to the high mountains.) Neither of these options, given the season and context of Norbu's family is a possibility.
The long ritual following Tashi's death in which Norbu and his wife witness a reenactment of funeral rites: a baby's body is dismembered by knives wielded by an actor wearing a mask decorated with skulls. Smaller characters wear skull faces and the musical motif combined with the fire recalls a similar treatment by Tian in regards to the rituals of death. What stuck me in this moment was 1) the displacement onto the body of the child-effigy as a stand in for the ritual not offered to Norbu's dead son and 2) the difference between the shots of Norbu in the headman's sky burial and this one. At the headman's funeral, he stood alone and apart from the ritual. In this reenactment, he stands along side his wife. The camera shows first her POV then Norbu's and then shows them both side by side. This is immediately after they have crawled prostrate on hands and knees through two overlaid seasons in remorse over their son's death. The overall impact seems to suggest that Tashi's death, has somehow conferred identity and solidarity on their relationship as husband and wife in the absence of a son that makes them a family. It is through absence that they have identity. The lack gives them their fullness. And their solidarity is particularly in how they stand for each other and apart from their previous community.
Norbu's grandmother's death signals a different set of circumstances. It was implied by Norbu's meeting with her, that she was the last surviving relative. She was in the process of preparing herself for her death, chanting constantly "I'm going to heaven." She was the last link for Norbu to gain readmittance into the Clan. She denies him this and later finalizes this decision in her death.
Again, in the snow, Norbu comes upon a part of her corpse (her backbone) and identifies it because of the handwheel used for her prayers lying nearby. Given the celestial ideal, finding her partial remains signifies 1) the impossibility of a living member to plead his case to reenter the clan and 2) a comment on the physical and spiritual entrapment that Norbu, the last and first of his hybrid family kin(d) now faces.
It is upon finding his grandmother's remains that the rest of the symbols fall into place. The remainder of the film plays out like an assemblage in which Norbu recreates his own settlement, his own funeral in which he can redeem his family. Each choice is of a particular and desperate type.
First, he happens upon and kills a sacred lamb. The rationale is that they will eat it and leave before the approaching snow storm traps them. His wife replies simply, "Are you crazy." Further analysis reveals two points. First, in conjunction with Norbu's grandmother's funeral, his violation of that ritual by the killing of the animal seals his fate and the reading of his grandmother's death. Secondly, as a pastoral symbol (set up by sheep running from right to left when Norbu was originally exiled and running left to right with the return of the first Spring) killing the animal forestalls the possibility of a Spring, with its promise of change ever coming. Thus, Norbu has also sealed the fate of the village which already suffered a bad harvest and an animal blight. (To word it similar to Chow's reading of Old Well, he has conferred meaning retroactively. He has made the past true indefinitely.) But lest we place too much fateful blame upon Norbu's shoulders, one should recall that the village has already packed up and left without Norbu. His actions only retrace those already in effect - ritualizing his bond to the community by making the events true down to every last member.
But in terms of closure, this film finally offers a collage as a solution, phrased as a proper funeral and death for Norbu. After successfully stealing horses and well on their way to escape, Norbu stops and recapitulates. He checks his child and his wife to make sure they are safe, and then rides back to the village. Several shots are fired and then we are shown a close-up of Norbu's knife in its sheath on the snow. The film then fades and returns with the funeral motif music and monk humming conferred upon the two legitimate burials along with a shot of the chorten outside the city wall - an exact duplicate of the shot for the headman's funeral. The only difference is the shot is empty, no smoke, no monk, no Norbu. Only vultures in the sky and no body on the ground.
Does Norbu finally attain the heavenly heights ? Or do the vultures remain airborne, never coming down to devour his body ? Where is Norbu's body ? Why did he not draw his knife ? In the most optimistic reading, Norbu ends the cycle of harmful actions by taking the responsibility. At the same time, he does so to ensure the safety of his son. His wife and child are able to escape and begin again because of his sacrifice. And yet at the same time, the innocence of the second son continues on because of the corruption of the mother who helped steal a horse.
In my reading, I mean to suggest that this type of history, phrased on the personal and familial historical level is never really present without the context of its larger social setting. In this case, a communal setting that turned its back on the family. In the final phase of the film, Norbu still remains faithful to the rituals of this abandoned culture, in fact his actions signal the death of that culture - its abandonment of him and his decision to leave. He cuts the throat of the sacred sheep, lightning sets the town marker on fire. Norbu offers his body to be shot to pieces, the vultures respond to the smoke. Mother and child flea, Norbu's body disappears.
Psychologically speaking, it would be interesting to continue Tian Zhuangzhuang's set up here by mentioning that his most recent controversial film Blue Kite, tells the story of a mother and child through the years of the cultural revolution from their points of view. Is this figuratively the continuation of elliptical Chinese History ? Or the story of Norbu's family ? Who can say ?
In the more linear world, Tian turned from these issues and started doing work for hire. Some called this his "penance" for his earlier bravado. Tian called it his decadent phase. "I was very disappointed then because of censorship in China. I decided that I didn't want to work any more on films that I wanted to do. So I would work with whoever approached me" (Sklar, 36). The result was a series of less than artistic and certainly not controversial films. With the appearance of Blue Kite, Tian once again joined a black listed group, though the others were from a younger group instead of the famed 5th Generation. The return to repression was what Sklar called a "time-honored solution" to the contradictions between the internal demand for control and the desire for foreign currency.
This constant ebb and flow of political and historical controversy might occur as an annoyance to the simpler concerns of film as an aesthetic art form struggling in a technologically stunted nation amidst a series of conflicting histories and senses of identity. Indeed, whatever progress China has gone through since 1979, recent memories of the ten years of chaos combined with even more recent memories of Tiananmen Square, offer a tremendous wall of cultural upheaval that needs time to heal. Even as it needs time to be revealed.
But it also needs ways to transform. And Horse Thief points to the transcendent within the earthly by dealing with the issue of family identity when it is abandoned by communal concerns. Whether it is Tibet foregrounded by the monolithic image of China, or the post-colonial hybrid individual subjectivity competing with the background issues, this belief in representing this great unknowable is both the source of China's continuing disappointment, and its hope.
As a closing note, I'd like to mention that Norbu's name can be associated with an occurrence in 1988 in Lhasa (Chan, 74). A mushroom sprouted in the dark during the full moon of the seventh month. It was taken as an omen since a similar incident marked the birth of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1876. There was a city-wide celebration for four days to celebrate this second appearance and many thought it prophesied the return of the exiled 14th Dalai Lama. Eventually, however, the festivities were broken up by the police and the mushroom was taken into protection. It now hangs in a yellow bag elevated off the ground in a temple near the Dalai Lama's throne. Neither in the heavens nor in the earth. At the same time a stone slab, resembling an eye in Jokhang began to bulge. And people continue to make pilgrimages to see this image and to pray. Does this concur with Tian's analysis or some other Chinese critic's ? Does it matter to Tibet ?
Horse Thief (Daoma Zei)
Dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang
Xian Film Studios, 1986, China
Bibliography
Berry, Chris. "A Nation T(w/o)o Chinese Cinema(s) and Nationhood(s) from Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema. Ed. Wimal Dissanayake. Indiana University Press. Bloomington, Indiana, 1994.
Chan, Victor. Tibet Handbook: A Pilgrimage Guide. Moon Publications, Inc. Chico, CA. 1994.
Chodang, Tiley. Tibet: The Land and the People. Trans. W. Tailing. New World Press, Beijing, China 1988.
Lopate, Phillip. "Odd Man Out." Interview with Tian Zhuangzhuang from Film Comment. v.30 n4. Jul/Aug 1994 p. 60-64.
Sklar, Robert. "People and Politics, Simple and Direct: An Interview with Tian Zhuangzhuang." from Cineaste v.20 n4. Oct 1994 p. 36-38.
Stanbrook, Alan. "Sky Burial: The Horse Thief." from Sight and Sound v.56 n4. Autumn 1987 p. 294.
Strat, A. "Dao Mazei." from Variety Sep. 2, 1987 p. 24.
Xia, Hong. Chinese Film Theory 1979-1989: On the Development and Contribution of Chinese Film Theory and Criticism in the New Era at Ohio University. MA Thesis, June 1991.