The theme of the play is heavy and the intention is profound, using vivid images to reproduce the tragic picture of the early anti-Japanese war when the common people were heroic and unyielding, fighting to the death. At the time of national crisis, even Jiu'er and Eighteen Knives, the lower class people, all threw themselves into the ranks of the anti-Japanese, and they used their flesh and blood to resist the invasion of foreign enemies. Nine children to blow up the enemy's arms train, an onyx, a load of spirits, with a generous death of grief, rushed to the enemy's military vehicles. The roar of the loud, sky-high fire, aroused the audience pressed in the heart of the emotion, ignited indelible national memory, but also gave birth to the current endless associations, especially "the Japanese invaders do not want to renege" roar, moving! This is also the Yu opera "red sorghum" the significance of reality. Nine children, eighteen knives sadly fell, son Douguan tenacious living, they are like the red sorghum on the Central Plains, one crop after another, continuous, endless. The red sorghum on the stage not only has a magnificent visual effect, but also has a strong symbolic meaning. It is commendable that the director used the living set, when the green net of corpses everywhere, the director let the red sorghum scene piece shaking up, such treatment let the audience sincerely feel the green net trembled, red sorghum angry, the invader's crimes, provoking the anger of the people.
The main characters of the play, Jiu'er and Eighteen Knives, are portrayed as full-blooded and distinctive. Jiu'er is a flower girl and Eighteen Knives is a rack flower, and the director has used many of the traditional formulae in modern characters in a natural and smooth way. Jiu Er is a grass-roots theater class singing knife horse Dan actor, character spicy, dare to love, dare to hate; eighteen knife is a reckless hero in the sorghum field, temperament, love and hate clearly, even the crotch of the mount is also different, not the yellow fat horse, not the flame colt, but a call donkey.