During the ten years of Cultural Revolution, traditional opera was banned by Mao's wife Jiang Qing, and replaced by a new kind of art in which the world was presented in a much simpler way: all the good guys were farmers and revolutionary soldiers, always singing and dancing in the broad spotlight. All the bad guys were landlords and anti revolutionaries, who wore dark make-up and were poorly lit. Pure propaganda told in beautiful images and stories, in an innovative way incorporating the most modern techniques of cinematography, song, and dance, thus becoming a new art form in Chinese culture: Revolutionary model opera--the Yang Ban Xi. More than 13 were created, but 8 of these carefully crafted model works were most popular and went into history as "The Eight Model works." They were filmed in bright Technicolor and Scope, and were the only kind of entertainment allowed in the theatres, on television and radio. Their influence was beyond measurement. The main performing characters became instant stars, revered in every household. Then, the storm of the Cultural Revolution subsided. Jiang Qing was convicted as a member of the Gang of Four, and became a scapegoat for everything that went wrong during the revolution. Intertwined with Jiang Qing, the propaganda operas spun into a downfall, reviled as despicable art for a long period of time. The rise and fall of the propaganda opera is reflected on those who performed in them. Ten years of unimaginable fame, after which some were left to a destiny of sweeping stage floors. Regardless of their respective fates, they share one thing in common: they all look back at the propaganda operas as a stressful, but great time of their lives--a time in which they actually believed, desperately wanted to believe, that Mao and his communist party held the key to a righteous world with equal opportunities for every person. However, history can be rewritten, and nowadays the Yang Ban Xi's have regained popularity.