If you want to have a look at Falling Flowers, the first movie ever about late Chinese writer Xiao Hong (1911-1942), you'd better check online first whether it is still available, since most cinemas have already taken the film off their schedule, even though it has only been a week or so since its debut on March 8 - International Women's Day.

For those who love this writer, finding a cinema still screening the movie and watching it in a sparsely attended hall will seem rather lonely. But to some, the cold reception might just reflect the writer's lonely, though not forgotten, life.

'Falling Flowers'

The movie directed by Huo Jianqi starts from a sickbed in Hong Kong where the seriously ill Xiao Hong tells Luo Binji, a young writer who admires her, about her tortured life.

Xiao Hong is the penname of Zhang Naiying who was born in 1911 to a land-owning family in Hulan county, Heilongjiang Province. As the movie goes, she leaves her family and goes to Beijing in 1930 to escape an arranged marriage. Still, she ends up living with the arranged fiancé because she becomes penniless after her family refuses to support her.

Soon she goes back to Harbin with her fiancé, but he abandons her for unclear reasons, leaving Xiao pregnant and in debt to the hotel they live in. In this plight she meets Xiao Jun, another Chinese writer, who saves her. The two fall in love and, sharing a common pursuit of literature, they go to Shanghai. There they meet Lu Xun, an important figure in modern Chinese literature, and begin to realize their dream of living as writers.

Due to Xiao Jun's amorous nature and Xiao Hong's pursuit of constant love, their relationship doesn't last. They finally break up painfully with Xiao Hong pregnant yet again.

She then goes to Wuhan with Duanmu Hongliang, a young writer that worships her, and gets married. During the chaos of war, the couple goes to Hong Kong, where she finally ends her destitute and homeless life in a hospital amid ceaseless bombing.

The movie sketches Xiao Hong's short and unstable life, floating through Harbin, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Wuhan, and Hong Kong, mainly following her course of life as widely known, with the writer's love life as the main line. References to her literary process and creations are scattered throughout the film as if only to remind the audience she is a writer.

Incomplete story

Xiao's dramatic relationships with four men and her tough life are vividly depicted in Falling Flowers. But the film has been criticized for focusing too much on her love life and emphasizing her charm as a woman without saying much about her literature.

"It depicts a Xiao Hong as one who only pursues love in her life, ignoring her identity as a writer," Zhang Haining, vice president with Xiao Hong Research Association, told the Global Times. "We cannot deny the producer's efforts, but their standpoint and their understanding of Xiao Hong is problematic. It will affect the image of Xiao and other writers of that time rather negatively."

Zhang added that it stems from the long-term misreading and gossip of the writer, which focuses on her love life. "To some extent, her hardships and complicated romances have overshadowed her literary achievements."

The director Huo Jianqi once said that the film is intended to tell the life story of Xiao Hong with her love life as the main theme. He said he wanted to represent Xiao's passion for love.

There are also doubts about the authenticity. Zhang said that some plots elements in the film are fiction. "Xiao never expressed discontent or hatred toward her fiancé, but the man is depicted as a flop in the movie who raped Xiao in Beijing, which is totally made up," he said. Zhang called for more communication between film producers and researchers when shooting biographies. 

Zhang Shutai, son of Luo Binji, pointed out that his father was only a friend of Xiao Hong and he took care of Xiao while she was sick - not because of some blind infatuation.

Probably that's the difficult part about shooting a biographical movie. There are also complaints that Song Jia, the lead actress, doesn't look like Xiao in spite of her efforts. Some audience members are revolted by the love-pentagonal plot.

"Xiao is a respectable female writer. Directors, please don't let the young people learn about her through the gossipy way you are used to," one moviegoer grumbled online.

A writer in spite of it all

Even amid the controversy, fans of Xiao feel glad that the writer's life story could get screened 71 years after her passing. Many hope the movie might at least get people to pay more attention to her and her works.

The forever-31-year-old writer is crowned as one of the "four talented women" in the period of the Republic of China (1912-49) along with Eileen Chang, for her literary talent and achievements. She grew up in a time of upheaval, which brought her extreme hardship, particularly as a girl. But she never gave up, continually resisting the misfortune in her life. 

Xiao stepped into literature formally after meeting Xiao Jun. In 1934, she finished The Field of Life and Death, one of the earliest novels to reflect how farmers in Northeast China struggled under oppression from landlords and fought against the invading Japanese army. Lu Xun wrote a preface for the novel and helped her get it published, a move that was key to establishing her position in modern Chinese literature. 

She persisted in writing during her decade of wandering. Though living a life of sickness and poverty in Hong Kong from 1940 to 1942, she published her novelette Ma Bole and long novel Tales of Hulan River. In the long novel, which was prefaced by Mao Dun, she recollected her hometown and childhood. It tells trivial stories that happened to ordinary people there, showing how the old society had twisted human nature and caused misery for people at the bottom. 

Xiao Hong's works, including prose and novels, are mostly about her hometown and ordinary people. Her works have been translated into many languages and recognized internationally. But she used to be branded politically as a left-wing writer, which limited people's understanding.

Zhang Haining told the Global Times that Xiao was misread because she showed so much concern for people's suffering in the old society, but it is because she had experienced a destitute life and, as a woman, she herself was among the weak.

"Xiao's writing is out of the heart instead of being politically influenced. She never joined the League of Left-Wing Writers that was serving a political purpose at that time," Zhang said, "Her writing maintained its independence and standpoint about society, which was quite rare in that period." 

He added that Xiao's independent spirit and her understanding of a writer who should surpass the limit of class still echo for today's society.

Another version of Xiao's story by Hong Kong director Ann Hui is busy in production. Zhang said he didn't expect much: "I have read the script. It also focuses on Xiao's love life. Maybe it will represent it in a different way. Let's wait and see."