In the Heat of the Sun

Looking back, the dazzling sunlight is no more

First, a note: I watched the 2022 French restoration of In the Heat of the Sun, running 140 minutes. All observations below proceed from that version. Jiang Wen’s films invariably arrive laden with allegory — Let the Bullets Fly, The Sun Also Rises, and the like. Limited as I am by my historical knowledge, I will not venture into that territory. I will only discuss one character: Gulunmu.

From beginning to end, Gulunmu appears as a figure marked by intellectual disability. He is a character of the most minor order, ostensibly deployed to convey the texture of the era, yet he threads through the entire film. In the beginning, whenever friends from the compound called out “Gulunmu,” he would answer “Oppa!” — the Korean password-exchange phrase from the then-popular revolutionary opera Raid on the White Tiger Regiment.

The brawl in the middle act is also sparked by an affront against him. This fight can be read in two ways: as the director’s device to reinforce the fraternal bond among the main characters at that moment, or as a mechanism to further modulate the characters (subtly sidelining the first-generation female lead) and adjust the film’s pacing. From this point on, Gulunmu, too, begins to fade from view.

Nearing the end, Ma Xiaojun, now estranged from his brothers, encounters Gulunmu in the compound. He offers no comfort to the weeping Gulunmu, merely brushing past. The fact that the director summons Gulunmu back at this point, after his long absence, underscores the character’s singular role.

At last, the protagonists have left that era and entered a new society. Through a car window, they spot Gulunmu and are flooded with memories. They call out, “Gulunmu! Gulunmu!” But Gulunmu, walking across the bridge, answers with only two words: “Dumbass.”

Watch closely, and you will notice that Gulunmu’s staff is never far from his side — even the film’s central conflict erupts because his staff was snatched away (as mentioned above) — and it remains with him to the very end. The protagonists, by contrast, have been utterly transformed by time. Gulunmu still carries his staff, but the words that leave his mouth are no longer “Oppa!” — they are the vulgar retort of a new, crass age: “Dumbass.” Connecting this with the earlier sequence, where the grown men sit drinking and chatting in the car, trying to recapture shadows of their youth, Liu Yiku — now himself mentally broken — points outside and spots that character who traverses the entire era. One word marks one age. From inside the car, Ma Xiaojun’s group keeps shouting the name they teased him with as boys, expecting him to answer “Oppa!” as before. But the two words Gulunmu hurls back declare that the era has changed. It is time to leave boyhood behind and return to reality.