Red as a Symbol for Passion in Red Sorghum
             Color is often used as a symbol in movies. The director can use colors in certain in order to emphasize certain ideas. Zhang Yimou uses this technique in his film, Red Sorghum. In this movie, a young girl, Nine, is married off to older wealthy man in pre-World War II China as told by the girl later in life. The color red is used as a symbol for the girl's passion.
             After being married off to the rich man, Nine travels in a red sedan chair to her marriage. Almost everything she is wearing is red. She is wearing red shoes and looking through a red veil. While she is riding in this, she looks outside to look at the shirtless men who are carrying her. She is immediately attracted one of the carriers, whose name is Yu. She looks at him by pushing aside the red curtains; the amount of red in this scene symbolizes the passion between Nine and Yu. During this the peasant carriers are all teasing Nine and rocking the sedan. This further emphasizes the passion in this scene, as the sedan is moving in a somewhat erotic fashion, while Nine sits inside peeking out at Yu. The teasing starts to upset Nine, who is now crying inside of the sedan. The carriers soon stop after seeing that she is crying. It is then seen Nine's red show placed on the black scissors on the floor of the sedan. The contrast between the passion of the red shoes and the power !
             in the black scissors shows the Nine is both passionate and powerful.
             During her journey to the wedding, a bandit interrupts the trip. He enters the sedan and is almost immediately mesmerized by Nine's beauty and strength. The bandit does not scare her, and she actually smiles at him after he enters the sedan. The bandit grabs her red shoe, which symbolizes the passion; he already has toward the beautiful girl in red. The bandit takes her out of the sedan and places her in the sorghum and has intentions to rape her, however she glanc...