The film "Hibiscus Town" (Furong Zhen, 1986) transformed this small Tujia town from a local curiosity into a national pilgrimage destination. The film, directed by Xie Jin and starring Liu Xiaoqing and Jiang Wen, tells the story of a tofu vendor whose business success, life, and dignity are systematically destroyed by successive political campaigns over two decades. It is one of the great films of the reform era and one of the most powerful Chinese accounts of what the Maoist campaigns did to ordinary people.
The film site in the town includes the original tofu stall location (now a working tofu vendor that sells tofu in homage to the film), a statue commemorating the story, and a small museum covering the film's history and production. The town markets itself heavily around the film connection; the best way to engage with it is to watch the film before visiting — the landscape will look different when you arrive. The tofu at the original stall site costs a few yuan and is worth buying regardless of its cinematic associations.