Living the Land Blu-ray Limited Slipcover Edition

In the village of Bawangtai in 1991, time appears to have stood still. Despite the rapid industrialization happening in cities across China, everyday rural life for farming families in the Henan province remains steadfastly tied to the demands of the land. 10-year-old Xu Chuang, the third-born child of one such family, is unceremoniously left with his wheat farmer uncle when his parents and older siblings set out to find work in the Southern city of Shenzhen. Cared for though unable to shake the feeling he doesn’t belong with the extended Li family, Chuang finds comfort in a young aunt – who feels similarly uneasy as she is pressured to marry – and his surly but kind nonagenarian great-grandmother. Each season rolls into the next, and Chuang learns the quotidian rhythms of the land which they all till, at once bucolic, cruel, cyclical and nourishing.
The Silver Bear winner for Best Director at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival, Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng’s elliptical and elegant sophomore feature proves “a cinema of patience is also a cinema of assurance” (Indiewire). Equal parts coming-of-age tale and epic portrait of provincial life, Living the Land exists at an apex for Chinese culture in the 1990s, “a time when major reforms were transforming China from a nation of rural laborers into the industrial powerhouse it is today” (The Hollywood Reporter).
 
 
Details
 
Director(s): Huo Meng
Starring: Wang Shang, Zhang Yanrong, Zhang Chuwen
Release Year: 2025
Runtime: 132 min
Aspect Ratio(s): 1.77:1
Language(s): Mandarin
Sound: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English
Format: Blu-ray
Disc Info: Region A Blu-ray
Packaging Artist(s): Brandon Schaefer
Genre: Drama
VS Release Date: November 1, 2026
SKU: FM-061 SLIP
 
Bonus Content
 
Interview with director Huo Meng
16-page booklet with essay by film writer Hayley Scanlon