The movie, titled The River in Me, is from an idea of Su Yang, a contemporary musician from Yinchuan, capital city of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. He later became one of the five characters in the film.

Born in east China's Zhejiang Province, Su moved to Yinchuan with his parents when he was a child. His music style combines the folk music style of northwest China and rock and roll music from the West, which gained him a fan base after his debut album in 2006.

In 2016, Su launched a project to preserve and promote the folk art styles that have influenced his music with the slogan Make the voice of the Yellow River flow to every corner of the world.

The film crew, about 70 percent of whom are Tsinghua University students, was divided into three groups to follow the steps of folk artists for nearly three years, collecting over 1,600 hours of footage and recording both their art and daily lives.

A poster of the movie The River in Me (COURTESY PHOTO)

Struggling artists

Of all the featured artists in the film, Su is the one who is widely known to the public with his music. The other four are more bound to their hometowns and are still struggling to pursue their dreams while trying to make ends meet.

Liu Shikai, a storyteller from Shaanxi Province in the northwest, is over 60 years old and a widower with three children. After his youngest daughter got married a couple of years ago, he has felt even lonelier.

He sometimes gets invited to perform his storytelling, which he does while playing a three-string instrument, mostly in nearby villages or counties with limited earnings. In recent years, there have been even fewer and fewer invitations. The film includes a scene where he is lying in bed sick, with a TV on all day long because he needs some noise around.

Ma Fengshan, a singer from a poverty-stricken area in Ningxia, leads a more active life. His favorite style is Hua'er, a traditional romantic folk music genre with impassioned lyrics. For locals, Hua'er is regarded as frivolous, but Ma doesn't take it to heart. He loves to sing loud and free. "Only when I'm singing Hua'er can I feel really relaxed," he said.

Zhang Jinlai, who leads a small Qinqiang Opera troupe, can't be as carefree as Ma. Qinqiang is a traditional opera popular in Shaanxi, and Zhang has been struggling to keep his troupe going. But no matter how hard he tries, things don't change much. Troupe members constantly complain and suggest he makes "innovations" to attract a bigger audience. With mounting pressures, Zhang thought about giving up, but his love for Qinqiang is too strong. Only when he's on stage can he shake off his worries, empty his mind and focus on the opera.

Wei Zongfu faces the same problems as Zhang. Leading a shadow play team from northwest China's Gansu Province, he is also at a loss as to what to do next since there are fewer people coming to their performances. His son studies away from home and will get married in a few years. Wei is now considering how much his shadow play materials, which he has been using for years, are worth. He may need to sell them for his son's wedding.

Rooted in hometown

Su found the other four artists on the suggestion of Lei Jianjun, a professor at Tsinghua University, who is also the executive producer of the film.

"It is these folk artists that have deeply influenced Su, which helped to form his own style," Lei said. "But they mostly remain unknown."

In 1995, Su founded his first rock and roll band in Yinchuan with the dream of becoming the best rockers in China. He is a big fan of Yngwie Malmsteen, a Swedish bandleader.

Su later turned to the folk music of his hometown and nearby provinces that he had been familiar with for a long time.

"Those melodies and rhythms are already in my blood," Su said. "Why don't I incorporate them into my music?"

His new style of integrating these folk songs with Western rock proved to be a hit. Su has now become an icon of this unique style and has been invited to music festivals around the world. But many folk artists, like the other four in the movie, still remain in their hometowns, watching the decline of their folk arts.

"I want more people in China and in the world to know about the existence of these folk melodies," Su said. "Whether it's through this movie, or in other ways, they are worth knowing."

After the release of the movie in June, two of the directors, Ke Yongquan, a graduate from Tsinghua, and Yang Zhichun, a doctoral student from Tsinghua, drove from Beijing to the villages of the other four artists, screening the movie for them and the villagers.

"Maybe we can't change the current situation for folk artists with this film," Yang said, "but I hope our efforts can inspire more people to get involved in preserving these arts."

"This movie records my life exactly," shadow play artist Wei said. "No exaggeration, no makeup. It is just the truth."

The film hit cinemas in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Compared to the blockbusters released in China at the same time, the movie's schedule is not at all as intense; however, it has still gained a solid group of fans.

"This movie connects urban and rural areas in China with Su's music," Shi Meng, a movie producer based in Beijing, told Beijing Review. What struck Shi most was the fact that there is a group of folk artists who pursue their art in such a "hard, odd but touching" way.

"At the end of the movie, the performance of Su's band at a music festival in Colombia won the applause of the foreign audience who didn't understand a word of the lyrics," Shi said. "The audience sang with the band together. This is the charm of music; it has no boundaries. The chorus on and off the stage at that moment brought the voice of the Yellow River to a bigger world."

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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