King of the Children

Synopsis

During the Cultural Revolution, an unschooled young man is laboring in the countryside when he is suddenly assigned to teach in a near-by village school. Gradually, he finds the confidence to encourage the barely literate kids to write about their own lives and feelings. At the same time, through a series of dream-like meetings with a young cowherd, he begins to sense the possibilities of a life beyond the parameters of traditional education. —X