River Elegy

River Elegy (Chinese: 河殇; Pinyin: Héshāng) was an early Chinese TV series co-authored by Su Xiaokang, shown in China Central Television in the late 1980s. The six-part documentary announcing the death of traditional Chinese civilization was extremely controversial. Su became a wanted man after the Tiannamen Square Massacre and went into exile.

The film asserted that the Ming Dynasty's ban on maritime activities alluded to the building of the Great Wall by China's first emperor Ying Zheng. China's land-based civilization suffered defeat from the more aspiring marine civilization backed by modern sciences, and was further challenged with the problem of life and death ever since the latter half of the 19th century -- landmarked by the Opium War.