Unlike many contemporary Chinese social criticism and cultural introspection movies that often disguised as political propaganda in the era of reform, this movie is just the opposite, it is actually a reverse, a political propaganda disguised as cultural introspection.
On the surface, this movie criticized the stubbornness of older peasants who refuse the new ideas and new technology that would improve productivity, a typical trend of conservatism in the traditional Confucian teaching, but in reality, the usage of the new technology was forced:
Due to the disastrous Great Leap Forward political movement launched by Mao in 1958, there was a severe shortage of labor because everyone had to make iron and steel, and in order to maintain agricultural productivity, new technology and machines must be used to make up the shortage of labor force. This is what this movie dared not to mention.