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Film: Farewell My Concubine
Running time: 171 mins
Director: Kaige Chen
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, Li Gong, Qi Lü, Da Ying
Genre: Drama/History/Romance/War
Country: China/Hong Kong
Region 1 release.
Chen Kaige’s epic historical drama is one of the pillars of the Chinese Fifth Generation, the film movement that gave birth to directors such as Zhang Yimou and Tian Zhuangzhuang, as well as influencing scores of modern filmmakers. Spanning across five decades, the film captures many pivotal moments in modern Chinese history, such as the Chinese Civil War and the Cultural Revolution, told through the personal experiences of a group of Beijing opera performers.
The film begins in a turbulent 1920s China following the end of the Qing Dynasty. The main protagonist, Dieyi, is the son of a poor woman who is forced to give him away to a Beijing opera troupe. It is soon discovered that Dieyi possesses a birth defect - an extra finger, and in the opening scenes, the troupe master is seen brutally chopping it off with a cleaver. This symbolic castration creates a grim omen for Dieyi’s fate, foreshadowing the difficult reconciliation between his identity and sexuality.
Due to the traditional nature of Beijing opera, women are not allowed to act and so men have to play both male and female roles. Dieyi, because of his effeminate build, is forced to train as a ‘dan’ – a male actor who only plays female roles. Soon, a friendship quickly develops between him and another boy, Xiaolu, the male lead. However, conditioned by always having to play the female onstage, Dieyi begins to harbour romantic feelings for Xiaolu. Unfortunately, for Dieyi, his affections are unreciprocated, sending him into a period of depression and opium addiction.
The climactic end of the film is set during the Cultural Revolution, in which the performers all suffer a tragic demise as Beijing opera is attacked for being a bourgeois form of entertainment. Theatres go out of business and are burnt, and the actors are forced to perform new, political plays, promoting the work of the Communist Party.
Throughout this period, Dieyi and Xiaolu, the main stars of the theatre, are attacked and persecuted by their understudies, made to write self-criticisms and paraded through the streets as class-enemies by the public. The two friends are beaten and reduced to hysterical wrecks, forced publicly to betray one another in order to save their own skins. As the baying mobs encourage them to humiliate and denounce each other, lifelong friendships are torn apart as both men compete to reveal one another’s most shameful and bitter secrets from the past…
Such a traumatic ordeal is far from fiction. Director Chen Kaige has stated in interviews that such scenes are based upon his own experiences as a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution. With such brutal depictions of the violence inflicted upon society by the Communist Party, it is of no surprise that Farewell My Concubine was banned upon release in mainland China.
Moreover, the film also questions the nature of political movements and revolutions against the interests of the individual. Throughout the decades, such is the beauty of the Beijing opera that it manages to survive the invasion of both the nationalist and Japanese armies. Indeed, in one particular scene, Dieyi is invited to perform for a group of Japanese generals, who sit captivated by his craft. It is only the communists, who regard Beijing opera as bourgeois and imperialist, that try to eradicate it. Ultimately, it seems, despite the promise of liberation, quality of life worsens under communist rule, and ancient traditions and art forms are systematically destroyed.
A number of issues regarding gender and sexuality are also raised in the film. Do gender roles define our sexuality, and what impact does society and upbringing have on it? For someone like Dieyi, continually referred to as “a girl” by his peers, and sexually abused from a young age, his private self begins to take own his onstage persona, conflating reality with fiction. In order to truly take on his role as a woman, Dieyi is forced to give up his masculinity in the name of theatre. Life imitates art, and performance thus becomes a defining part of his identity, in terms of his profession as an actor, and in his everyday life, where he must ‘act’ the part of a heterosexual man in normal society.
In some senses, the film can be regarded as a valentine to Beijing opera, which is portrayed as a cruel yet magnificent institution, with its performers having to sacrifice themselves for their art. The lavish costumes and settings are all shot in epic, breathtaking scenes that convey the full glory and excitement of the theatre. Dieyi, during his performances as the female lead, radiates a fragile, androgynous beauty, made all the more poignant by actor Leslie Cheung’s real life controversy surrounding his sexuality, and subsequent suicide.
By using the metaphor of theatre, Chen invokes the idea of performance onstage and in everyday life, creating a contrast between the public and private self. The onstage persona of the actor mirrors the public persona of the individual. Do we not all, to some extent, ‘perform’ a role in society, and keep a part of our true selves masqueraded from everyone else, be it our sexuality, desires, or ideology?
Farewell My Concubine is a tour-de-force of Chinese cinema that unearths the shattered and untold personal histories of a troubled modern nation, liberated and subjugated by itself all too many times. KW
Film: A Better Tomorrow
Release date: 30th April 2007
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: John Woo
Starring: Chow Yun-fat, Ti Lung, Leslie Cheung, Emily Chu
Genre: Action/Crime/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
Perhaps the most influential director the action genre will ever see, John Woo honed his craft at the legendary Shaw Brothers studio before joining with producer Tsui Hark and finding his true calling in the crime genre. Woo’s signature style, consisting of balletic action sequences alongside themes of religion, family and, of course, doves, is established with A Better Tomorrow.
Ho and best friend Mark run counterfeit money for the Triads; they live a life of luxury and ease. At the same time, Ho’s little brother Kit climbs the ranks of the Hong Kong police force.
Ho and Triad initiate Shing are sent to Taiwan to close a deal. While at the meeting they are ambushed by police and narrowly escape with their lives, although Ho is later arrested and sentenced to prison. Ho’s father is attacked and killed by an assassin, and in his dying breath he pleads with Kit to forgive his criminal brother. Kit is furious at his brother, who he blames for their father’s death. Meanwhile, consumed by anger at Ho’s imprisonment, Mark takes revenge on those responsible, but is crippled in the process.
All of this has been orchestrated by Shing, who quickly rises to power in the Honk Kong organisation. Ho is released from prison and quickly finds Shing in charge and Mark reduced to cleaning duties at a Triad owned taxi firm. Driven by jealousy and hatred for Ho, Kit and Mark, Shing makes plans to have them all killed…
A Better Tomorrow is a rare treat, a chance to watch a maverick auteur crafting his own signature. Some may believe that artistic intentions are wasted on the action genre, not John Woo, who can make the bloodiest battle a thing of majestic beauty. Cutting his teeth at Shaw Brothers with traditional swords and chivalry epics, Woo soon teamed up with legendary producer Tsui Hark and gave birth to the ‘heroic bloodshed’ sub-genre. Characterised by honourable career criminals and world weary cops blasting chunks out of each other in slow motion, these films remain the most influential series in the action genre, responsible for, among other things, The Matrix, which functions as a love letter to heroic bloodshed cinema (and is highly influential in its own right).
For his first action film, Woo crafts an effortlessly cool crime fable about brotherhood and redemption. ABT establishes many of the themes Woo would revisit throughout his career; religion, family, honourable friendship and the economic state of modern China all feature heavily in the film. His distinctive style is at its most prototypical here, the slow motion sequences, juxtaposition montages and freeze frames are all here. Most of these stylistic ticks are borrowed from the nouvelle vague and the early work of the American Zoetrope crowd, but Woo uses them to craft a succinct form out of the chaotic tenets of the action genre.
Many of the cast of A Better Tomorrow would return for future Woo films, and the principal cast is uniformly strong throughout. Leslie Cheung excels as the headstrong Kit, whose duty to the law is not always conducive to his shaky relationship with his brother. Ti Lung is strong in the central role, offering a great early representation of the symbolic Woo hero. Best of all, though, in a role that made him the go to guy for action heroes, and a by-word for Eastern cool in the west, is Chow Yun-fat. In a brilliantly typical Woo action sequence, we see Yun-fat’s Mark striding down a restaurant corridor, girl on each arm, planting guns in plant pots so as to avoid the hassle of reloading. Later, Mark stalks down the same corridor and, dual wield 9mm pistols, massacres a room full of goons. Long black trench coat, toothpick, charisma, this is the moment when Yun-fat embodies an archetype.
The Matrix, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Desperado, in fact, any film with a standoff, a dove, some slow motion or a black suited criminal owes a great debt to a signature style that was established with this film. John Woo has made better films, and he has made films that are much, much worse, but he will never come close to making the impact he did with this, his first slice of heroic bloodshed. KT
Film: Happy Together
Release date: 26th January 2009
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
Director: Wong Kar-wai
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Kwok-Wing, Tony Leung, Chiu-Wai, Chang Chen
Genre: Drama
Studio: Artificial Eye
Format: DVD
Country: Hong Kong
Flamboyant, camp and loud are the characteristics of a homosexual man which mainstream media has been keen to exaggerate - damaging displays of what it is to be gay dominate today’s society. I’m glad to say that these representations are a million miles away from what director Wong Kar-wai chooses to present in his 1997 outing, Happy Together.
As with most of Wai’s work, the story is limited and focuses on one particular area. We follow the on/off relationship of Lai (Tony Leung - Chungking Express, Lust, Caution) and Ho (Leslie Cheung - Ashes Of Time, A Better Tomorrow). After arriving in Argentina as a couple, suddenly they break up. Ho has been deeply affected by this event. He is trying to move on with his life, but now working in Buenos Aires as a doorman at a Tango bar, Ho unexpectedly turns up one night with another man. Suddenly all of his emotions come rushing back.
Deeply upset and angry that his ex partner has returned, Ho insists on trying his best to get back with Lai. After several confrontational violent arguments, Ho returns to Lai severely bruised and beaten. Lai begins to care for him at his small one bedroom apartment. As Lai and Ho stay together again, overtime Lai’s feelings once again start to develop. What follows are events that will test their love forever…
This is all I care to share about the movie’s narrative - the movie’s success lays in not really knowing a lot about it. This enhances the overall effect of the movie. In fairness, not a lot of events actually happen in this movie. On the other hand, Wong Kar-wai has never been a director to rush along with the development of the narrative. What we have is one of the most authentic and real representations of what it’s like to be in a relationship in cinema history.
Whether you are homosexual, bisexual, lesbian or straight; this movie captures the passion, the foundations of what makes people fall in love with someone; and also presents the effects of what being in love can do. Wai did not choose to exploit the representation of a homosexual relationship - for instance, the movie does not use graphic sex scenes for the sake of ‘shock factor’.
Unlike other gay-targeted productions, the movie works so well because it does not focus on the taboos of being a homosexual in society. The relationship could as easily be a man and woman – it just happens to be two men (they do not act in any manner that is out of the ordinary). This is what drives the movie, seeing their relationship develop over a period of time. In particular moments, Wai will have several scenes back to back in the same location. The cinematography by Christopher Doyle is once again on top form - beautifully captivating a true sense of isolation from the outside world. This makes the relationship seem more believable and on a knife’s edge.
The two characters live in poverty stricken conditions, however Wong Kai-wai manages to craft each shot like they are individual pieces of art. Although Happy Together is not as accessible as his other works, the movie is still enjoyable, making use of two powerhouse performances from Leung and Cheung in career defining roles. The tone of the movie isn’t as funny or hip as say Chungking Express, but this movie isn’t meant to be in that same vein.
Its seriousness and gripping tone throughout does make you care for the relationship. It can be argued that the brief comedic and romantic elements are lost due to the constant violent arguments and struggling desires between the two, but it’s a minor quibble.
The new print of Happy Together has been beautifully remastered for its twelve year anniversary. The sound of Frank Zappa’s guitar sounds crisper, whilst the visuals have been transferred into glorious high definition - the movie looks better than ever!
The DVD comes with an insightful making of documentary, the theatrical trailer and filmographies of both the cast and director. I just wish Wong Kar-wai gave more access to raw footage from his movies. I’d especially like to see some original takes of the argument, for example - it would be very interesting to see how he directed these crucial sequences, and how they developed.
Happy Together is a great experience. The movie looks amazing and is incredibly acted. Most importantly, it creates a representation of homosexual men that is generally lacking in film and TV today. TJP
