The King of Masks (1996)

The King of Masks (Wu Tian-ming, 1996)
Mandarin Title: Bian Lian

"We're just actors, both of us. We don't count for much in society," Master Liang tells a sobbing little girl. Liang (Zhao Zhigang) is an opera star, known as the living Bodhisatva, the deity that grants wishing parents sons. Doggie, the little girl (Zhou Renying) once pretended to be a boy, succeeding in deceiving Wang Bianlian (Zhu Xu), the so-called King of Masks who needs a male heir to inherit his craft, into buying her. The society Liang is talking about is 1930's China, a society that is irrationally divided by the have's and the have not's, the males and the females. It is a society that is so consumed by its traditions and culture, that it unknowingly or knowingly places a portion of the populace to the margins. Liang talks about himself literally, that his stature in the arts is not enough to save Doggie's adoptive grandfather, but talks about Doggie figuratively, thet her being born a girl has left her an insignificant part of society, undeserving of the simple pleasures of family and dignity.

The King of Masks comments on society's fascination with replaceable facades. Wang's craft consists of a performance wherein he changes masks in a swift sway of his hands, predictably enchanting his many viewers some of which would bribe him to reveal his secrets. Liang has garnered a legendary reputation by impersonating a revered god, earning for him several influential patrons and a bevy of friends. These are shallow acts obviously, acts that constitute momentary pleasures for the working man or signifiers that heaven has graced the earth with a likely semblance of itself. Once that fascination is used to point out an injustice in a system that has functioned over the years, as let's say, a girl, abused and abandoned for the plain reason of her not having a penis, dons boys' clothing to simply be loved, it is met with scathing disapproval or scant attention. China, at that time, is prolonging a tradition that should have died a long time ago: little boys are being kidnapped, little girls are being sold or given away. An entire black market has emerged taking advantage of this as a result.

I'm making it sound like the film as one of those unentertaining yet oddly compelling films that stretch on and on for minutes just to drive a point. It's not. The King of Masks is fashioned like an amiable melodrama. You could just take it as it is, a genuinely likable tearjerker.

All of the performances are wonderful. Zhu Xu inhabits the role of the masks master with striking sincerity. Here we have a headstrong old man grabbing on that little bit of dignity by not sharing his obscure craft, not to the kindly Liang, not to those willing to pay handsomely, not even to the girl (the craft should be passed on to a male heir, supposedly to carry on the family legacy) who has come to call him her grandfather, but Zhu keeps the character grounded not by his insistence on antiquated social norms but by his basic humanity, his inherent ability to have his stony exterior thaw to genuine emotions. Zhou Renying, like all of cinema's kids trying to penetrate through the shells of crusty old folks (the children of Kolya (1996), Life is Beautiful (1997), and Central Station (1998), for example), is adorable. More importantly is how Zhou commands not only for pity but also for your compassion and even adulation. Her character is crafted as someone who's been through hell, to the point that life is no longer as precious to gamble with when push comes to shove, which is the reason why her final showcase of bravery (clearly emulated from an opera she and the masks king previously saw) is believable and admittedly heartbreaking.

Wu Tian-ming, producer of The Horse Thief (1986) and Red Sorghum (1987), Tian Zhuangzhuang and Zhang Yimou's breakthrough films (you can claim that he jump started the careers of both directors), directs the film. Wu doesn't have Tian's striking simplicity or Zhang's visual verve. He does wear his heart on his sleeve though, and The King of Masks is unabashedly melodramatic. The music swells perfectly on emotional cue and the close-ups are right on the target, just to catch the girl's comfortlessly face at the moment of pleading with raging tears. The film begs for your tears with the subtlety, not necessarily the efficiency, of a sledgehammer but whether you finish the film dry-eyed or not, you can appreciate the effort. At least, there lies a resonant message for all beneath its facade of being pure entertainment for the entire family.

Yellow Earth (1984)

Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984)
Mandarin Title: Huang tu di

The parched landscape, so prominently displayed and magnificently shot by cinematographer Zhang Yimou in Chen Kaige's film adaptation of a novel entitled Echo in the Deep Valley, is more than just a setting for the tale of a Communist officer who lives with an impoverished farming family. The arid valleys paint an accurate picture of a people where poverty and misfortune has been so ingrained, it has seeped into their culture as their songs are melancholic and woeful, and their traditions (wooden fishes are served during weddings since they cannot afford real fishes) have been etched to exemplify the extreme austerity they have been accustomed to.

Chen's Yellow Earth, regarded by many as the quintessential film of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers (it also voted as the fourth best in a list of the best one hundred Chinese films ever made), speaks through these images of dried-up lands and cloudless skies and painfully wailful songs. It speaks of a people who despite their mournful situation has come to be contented of that fact of life, that there will be times that the sky will withhold precious rain and the crops will stop growing. It's a cyclical truth they have, for so many years, endured. The solutions they have crafted for the ingrained poverty are hardly novel, like marrying off their daughters to wealthier even if older villagers, or for dire situations, performing a rain ritual to appease pagan gods. Despite the seemingly inhumane and unmodernized facilities that make living somewhat more bearable, it has become a way of life that is accepted, undisturbed and somewhat satisfying for its resulting ironic bliss knowing that their fate is beyond their paltry will.

Gu (Wang Xueyin) is an idealistic Communist officer. He beams with pride of the task he carries, to collect folk songs for the army fighting off the Japanese invaders. His exuberance is uncharacteristic of the pitiful and dry locale, who politely exchange his queries with respectful smiles and answers. The family he lives with consists of a widowered farmer (Tan Tuo), his fourteen year old daughter Cuiqiao (Xue Bai), dreadful of her impending wedding to a wealthier man, and his son Hanhan (Liu Quiang), selectively quiet. They are at first cautious and careful with Gu, hospitably preparing his foot bath and other amenities inasmuch as they can but Gu's enthusiasm breaks the barriers of forced politeness, and the family opens up to his detailed stories of the Communist campaign: of the equal opportunities for men and women in the army, of the primitivity of the longstanding traditions that the poor village have accustomed to (especially of the forced marriages), and of modernity of thought. These ideals spark something within Cuiqiao: a chance for escape, a rekindled hope that there is life beyond the desert-like land that is ironically entangled by the Yellow River.

Bitingly ironic, Cuiqiao drowns while rowing against the currents of the river on her way to the capital to join the army, singing and barely finishing the verse "It's communists who save the people." Despite the political undertones (the film is very strongly critical of the government), it was never banned in China unlike Chen or Zhang's later films; perhaps the message was so subtly enveloped by the wailing songs of the villagers, the panoramic vistas of the desolate land, and the hopeful enthusiasm of officer Gu's stories that the film felt more like propaganda than anything. The film is set during the Japanese invasion, but the living standards of rural China when the film was made haven't changed, making the promises of Gu and his government even more severe. It is that hope rekindled by the promise, ultimately betrayed, that is destructive disturbance that Yellow Earth so eloquently tells us of.

The promises are drowned along with the girl who banked her future on them as the rest of the villagers succumb to what they know best and stay put and pray to their gods to cure their land of that infernal drought. It's a fitting conclusion, instead of wrapping the film with Cuiqiao's depressing demise. It puts a closure to the harmful disturbance Gu has introduced to the village's consciousness, very volatile to any semblance of hope. That to rely on the promises of a government whose only presence is an officer who siphons songs to boost army morale is utter futility, and that reliance on that traditions that have been carried on from one poor generation to another to merely survive the cruelty of the land is comparably not all that bad.

Lust, Caution (2007)

Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007)
Mandarin Title: Se, Jie

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is such a handsome, handsome film. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who also shot Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005) turning the cold wilderness of cowboy country into the perfect getaway for the homosexual lovers, likewise turned Shanghai under Japanese occupation, complete with the visually depicted sufferings and with its streets littered with corpses who were either shot in the head by trigger-happy Japanese soldiers or just passed on to the next world from sheer starvation, into the perfect locale for political and romantic intrigue between a spy Wang (Wei Tang) and her target Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a high ranking officer of the government established by the collaborators.

The film is so handsomely shot that even the explicit sex scenes, which begin only halfway through the film, have a particular quality of politeness or courtesy. True, the choreographed bed scenes are at times violent even bordering on morbid (especially the first time Yee succeeds in having his way on Wang; he rips her dress off and forces himself into her without a trace of compassion) but you can sense that Lee insists on grace, form and passable pressure when there should be boundless tension and callous power struggles between his two sexual beings. In other words, Lee is merely an inch away from being truly uncompromising, but decided to stay within the boundaries of good taste and propriety.

The many sexual positions, at times shocking, where both Lee's actors are drenched in lustful sweat, their limbs entangled with each other, and every bit of their bodily hairs and private parts are exposed to the watchful gazes of the audience are all too artful and passionate to be completely effective, at least in depicting the inevitable descent of the two individuals into the uncharted territory of emotional complexity.

Lee is a director who is always available for compromise (quite frustratingly so), and is always very polite in his films (even the gay cowboy movie, which was so overwhelmingly praised by almost everyone, is too cordial and civil to create an authentic altering stir). There seems to be no room for indecency in Lee's cinematic vocabulary, making Lust, Caution, despite its steamy bed scenes that somehow feel afraid to border chaotic or brazen, a step forward for the director.

Lee's gaze is unfortunately asexual. He operates as a passive observer, unflinching when a man is murdered by several stabbings, unsatisfyingly disinterested when Wang is deflowered for an unpracticed cause. Unlike Catherine Breillat, who in her several films (Romance (1999) and Anatomy of Hell (2004)) has mastered a female approach to sex, or Russ Meyer (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)), Tinto Brass (Salon Kitty (1976)), or even Lars Von Trier (Breaking the Waves (1996)), filmmakers (not necessarily effective ones) whose kinky and sometimes longing approaches to sex offer uniquely masculine perspectives, Lee's use of sex is merely perfunctory (but still seductively beautiful). He is exact and direct in his measurements, disappointingly afraid to be gratuitous or pornographic. Judge me now, but I wanted more.

Sex, which comprises around ten minutes of the lengthy running time, is central to the film. The true conversation piece of Lust, Caution, far more important than the loud gossipy discussions about husbands' politics and contraband over several games of mahjong and the whispered yet inutile plans of assassinating important Japanese collaborators, is spoken amidst the choked moans and the staggered breathing. Both victim and victimizer become vulnerable to the hazards of their repressed and tortured hearts, finding solace from their respective real life roles in the heat of their combined bodies. In a city corroded by war and intrigue, solace is indeed attractive if not tempting, that even the most hardened of individuals welcome the safety of such comfort, forever blurring the lines that separate right and wrong, loyalty and disgrace, love and lust.

Tuya's Marriage (2006)

Tuya's Marriage (Wang Quanan, 2006)
Mandarin Title: Tuya de hun shi

Berlinale-winner Tuya's Marriage is bookended with the same sequence: two boys fighting with one boy explaining that the other teased him regarding having two fathers. Tuya (Yu Nan) tries to calm the two boys to no avail, forcing her to storm into an empty tent to cry out of frustration. We hear a man calling for her; she merely looks out the window and the film blacks out.

Director Wang Quanan's decision to introduce his film with its inevitable conclusion is a brave one. It gives the director the tough duty to concretize the middle portion well enough to sustain the interest despite the preset knowledge of the ending. The film officially starts with Tuya and her herd of sheep; on her way home, she discovers her neighbor Sen'ge, unconscious beside his motorcycle. She brings him home and takes care of him while her invalid husband Bater calmly approves of her acts --- probably out of deference of his wife's heading his household, as he has lost his mobility in an accident.

Wang surrounds Tuya with these flawed men: Bater, who is practically another mouth to feed which Tuya, as loving wife and mother of their children, cannot just abandon; and Sen'ge, who we acknowledge as suspiciously too nice to Tuya despite being a willing slave to his materialistic wife. When Tuya is forced to divorce Bater because of her lumbar injury (the circumstances would leave the two children in the protection of their two invalid parents; something Tuya's sister-in-law disapproves of ), hordes of suitors start inviting Tuya to marriage. Her proposition is highly unlikely but something she cannot compromise --- that her prospective husband should take both her two children and ex-husband into their household.

That's basically the film's central dilemma. Tuya is stoic and strong-willed, hardly in need of a man's support but circumstance and society convinces her of the added securities of getting married to an able-bodied male. Tuya's courters include a timid middle-aged man who showers Tuya with gifts, Bater's wealthy brother, a retired professor who promises Tuya a wealthy life and education for her two kids, and of course, Sen'ge, who pledges to divorce his wife and dig a well to placate Tuya's need for a man.

The irony of everything is that Tuya would always transcend the promises of stability and good life her courters offer; and that marital life, as Sen'ge initially says is a mere scrap of formality, is hardly the solution to her troubles. The irony to the irony is that it seems that the men are the ones who are slaves of marriage --- Sen'ge with his submissiveness to his wife's whim; Bater with his cloaked jealousy with Tuya's hunt for an able man; and all the other men who have their respective reasons for courting Tuya to marriage. Tuya is the last person in the movie to ever need marriage; and her decision for doing hunting for one is merely for the benefit of her children and Bater.

Wang's critical address on China's rapid modernism is fleshed out by this intricately conceived tale that weaves a tinge of sarcasm upon the traditionalism of the marital ceremony (we witness the colors and the aural beauty of the ceremony) mixed with the modernist and proprietary benefits of marital union. That's why Wang insists on beginning and ending the film with Tuya's cry of frustration; and in the end do we truly know the quagmire of complexed and complicated familial relations and problems that the wedding has given birth to. That's when we sufficiently understand Tuya's frustration.

Curse of the Golden Flower (2006)

Curse of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou, 2006)
Mandarin Title: Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia

Hourly announcements by uniformed men of astrological indications and accompanying significant virtues drown the whispered plots and familial scandals being discussed behind closed doors. The emperor (Chow Yun-fat) prides himself of his ideal family; the model family for the rest of Tang dynasty China. Three sons (the crown prince Wan (Ye Liu), middle child Jai (Jay Chou), and youngest eager beaver (Qin Junjie), a lovely wife (Gong Li), and the memories of a previous wife (and mother of the crown prince) --- it's a lovely family portrait. However, this seemingly perfect ancient Chinese family may in fact be related to the dysfunctional suburban families of this cinematic generation. The emperor is secretly poisoning his wife's hourly medicines with Persian black fungus; the eldest son is having an illicit affair with his stepmom while also shagging the court doctor's lovely daughter (Li Man); the second child is plotting a coup d'etat; and the third son feels too giddy and satisfied to be really satisfied with his place in the world.

It's a labyrinthine ploy. Endless dialogues and revelations inch their way to our cinematic consciousness. Once the pattern is established with daring strides of make-believe narrative, we witness something I can accurately compare to a Jackson Pollock painting --- the film feels like paints were conveniently thrown to a canvass and luckily, the questionable experimentation worked.

Zhang's film does not only feel like a Pollock painting, it also looks like one. The marvelous sets, the intricately created costumes, and the astounding amount of extras commissioned to play a body in a crowd are testaments to Zhang's flourish and filmmaking capabilities. Yet unlike the color-coordinated stories of Hero (2002), or the emotionally apt visual palette of House of Flying Daggers (2004), it felt like Zhang foregone all notion of restraint. Curse of the Golden Flower is afflicted with psychedelia; watching it sober from the effects of drugs (although I haven't tried doing so) might take away the substance from Zhang's rationale in making the interiors of a majestic Forbidden Palace-esque monument look like the inside of a pack of melted M&M's chocolates.

Why exactly Zhang would lash out aesthetically with Curse of the Golden Flower remains to be a mystery to me. Probably, because he can. Despite the film's overly extravagant, too-beautiful-it's-a-bit-ugly, insanely colorful depiction of Shakespearean melodrama, there's a sense of artful pageantry to the excesses of Zhang's cinema. Overflowing bosoms, ritualistic formalities of court life, golden courtyards --- all these just relate to Zhang's visual pastiche and believe it or not, the aesthetic madness is quite addicting.

And the summation of Zhang's excesses is the climactic coup d'etat, where crimson colored soldiers fight it off against a horde of black-clad guardsmen against the backdrop of golden chrysanthemum carpets which are occasionally being sprayed with dark red splashes of blood. It's appartently a mixture of CGI and a cast of thousands of extras; but onscreen, it looks ridiculously stunning (even slightly political; the sequence did remind me of Tiananmen riots). Excessive it may be, but Curse of the Golden Flower is nothing short of an achievement.

Curiosity Kills the Cat (2006)

Curiosity Kills the Cat (Zhang Yibai, 2006)
Mandarin Title: Hao qi hai shi mao

It is very important to place Curiosity Kills the Cat within the social milieu that it's supposed to be placed. Watching the film without the faintest idea that it is set in a highly urbanized area in the riverbanks of the Yangtze would lessen the impact of the film; probably even dilluting its intentions as mere pedestrian and shallow. The knowledge of the setting would emphasize that the characters in the film are reactionary towards the ongoing capitalization of communist China; that a widening divide between the have's and the have not's are bestowing an impact on the psyche of the Chinese.

In a telling scene near the end of the film, Fendou (Fan Liao), the security guard of the residential complex tells Rose (Carina Lau) that if she just follow the Yangtze downstream, she will reach his hometown. Rose, the only daughter of a wealthy corporation owner, is taken aback for a while, probably surprised that the lowly guard would share an insignificant fact of his life to her. Her reactions do not last long. The divide dictates that he is available for any type of service as long as the price is right; the guard understands that fact but also knows that in such an engagement, the two of them have become equals. He tries to prolong those moments of equality by an activity of his impoverished lifestyle: he counts each and every note that is given him to make sure the payment is complete and he is not swindled by Rose. Rose dejects such invasion and tells the guard to hurry up; uncomfortable that the great divide be narrowed by any human connection.

Rose's husband Mr. Zheng (Jun Hu) is not born rich. He is a beneficiary of the new economic system and has worked himself to being wealthy, first by marrying Rose and second, by maintaining such marriage. Again, the eruption of a love affair with a lowly hairstylist Lynn (Jia Song) threatens to disrupt the gap. The ease of his reaching his present social status is the same ease for which it can be removed. The sexual and romantic relations he has established with Lynn is seen as his downfall. Lynn sees the relationship as a gateway to the top. Zheng bribes her with money to stop their romantic relationship; she accepts, but later on builds a nail shop in the residential complex just to be closer to his then lover. For Lynn, Zheng is a glimmer of hope for a new life; the same way Rose is once the hope for Zheng to manipulate the system for his own establishment. It's that problematic love triangle that pervades the film's plot; it also establishes the closely-knit themes of the social divide and the once impossible hope for an upward movement in capitalist Chinese society.

Then there's Momo (Yuan Lin), the curious and nosy conspiracy theorist who first established the ongoing romance between Zheng and Lynn. She photographs them with her cellular phone hidingly during their intimate moments; follows them wherever they go; and later on, attempts to use such knowledge to benefit her relationship with Fendou the security guard. She first tempts the security guard about the upper class lifestyle when she claims she has been invited into posh parties in the units of the residential complex; the guard scoffs at Momo and reprimands her for wishing to be equal with the rich not knowing that once he has taken a bite or a mere look at such lifestyle, the vicious cycle of capitalist greed will invade his processes.

Director Zhang Yibai cleverly wraps such social dynamics in a thrilling tale of marital deterioration. Within that residential complex, a heightening sense of awareness is discovered by the residents, the tenants, and the employees. Despite the heavy handed approach, Zhang masterfully crafts a film that can be both appreciated as a piece of entertainment, or a biting social commentary. It also helps that Zhang's storytelling skills is meticulous; that his approach of telling the tale in a puzzle piece fashion works without falling into the usual mistake of severe plot holes or Tarantino-like gimmickry.

The Banquet (2006)

The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang, 2006)
Mandarin Title: Ye yan

The Banquet, Feng Xiaogang's Shakespearean pageant has been harshly criticized by critics and audiences of its homeland China which favored Zhang Yimou's similar costume drama to represent it in the Oscars foreign film race. Instead, Hong Kong, which co-produced the feature of the mainland director, submitted it to represent the former colony to the Oscars. The biggest critical target was Zhang Ziyi, the central character of the film, the Lady Macbeth-like woman of ambition who was quick to marry the usurping brother (Ge You) of his then husband, the emperor, who also happens to be the father of her childhood sweetheart, Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu). Zhang was criticized of being miscasted as a conniving empress; the role which was claimed to be more suited for a more mature actress. Aside from the miscast, The Banquet is further criticized for being dragging, too opulent and operatic, with fight scenes being sacrificed for endless dialogues which were written with a poetic literary quality that is bound to alienate viewers.

I thought the criticisms were mostly unfair. I found The Banquet as more than satisfying --- a gorgeous loose cinematic adaptation of the Bard's "Hamlet" which is in equal parts an intriguing tale of blue-blooded treachery and a gushing and moving portrait of the corruptive quality of power. Aside from the family of usurpers and usurpers-to-be, the Emperor's minister (Ma Jingwu) and his son (Huang Xiaoming) join the mix by plotting to steal the throne. In true Shakespearean tradition, the minister's daughter (Zhou Xun) represents the tragic moral center; the innocent moving spirit who is victimized by the clashing sides in the battle for the throne.

Feng used to make comedy films. He has established himself as a bankable commercial director. His last film A World Without Thieves (2004) was a box-office hit in both mainland China, Hong Kong, and other Chinese-speaking territories. It seems that Feng is trying to use The Banquet to reach Western audiences, using a familiar tale of passionate intrigue within the grandiosely adorned courts of ancient China. The production is astounding. Feng borrows the production team behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000). Tim Yip builds an extravagant palace that is detailed to the last little statue that adorns its cavernous hallways. The costume designs are similarly brilliant and creates a dream-like beauty to this quasi-historical fantasy (which reminds me of Akira Kurosawa's colorful Ran (1985), also an adaptation of one of William Shakespeare's works). Tan Dun scores the film with something more melodic than his scores for both Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which were more rhythmic. Tan Dun's score enunciates the film's visual opulence with his equally operatic musical compositions.

Perhaps The Banquet merely suffered from the backlash of abysmal wuxia products from directors whose previous films were of artistic merit (Chen Kaige's The Promise (2005) and Tsui Hark's Seven Swords (2005) come to mind). The genre has always been an excuse for these directors to show off their indulgent sides, and at times, the indulgence overtakes the depth and worthiness of the features. I believe Feng's decision to update Shakespeare into a Chinese quasi-historical epic, instead of cooking up a brand-new tale of mythic proportions, did well for him. The stylized acting, the huge sets, the slow motion movements, and the melodramatic turns, fit the material quite well. No complaints here.

Life on a String (1991)

Life on a String (Chen Kaige, 1991)
Mandarin Title: Bian zou bian chang

Chen Kaige's Life on a String opens and ends with death. It begins with the death of a blind grandmaster who tells his young disciple to break the one thousand strings of his banjo to open the box that contains a prescription that will cure his blindness. Sixty years after, the young disciple has turned into an old master (Liu Zhongyuan) yet still carries the same banjo that contains the secret prescription, with only a few strings remaining intact. Along with his also blind disciple, Shitou (Huang Lei), the old master travels to a remote village that is torn by two warring clans. The old master is considered a saint, and through his songs, the two clans are momentarily pacified. However, the young disciple is beholden by the village lass Lanxiu (Xu Qing) and further neglects his duties to his old master.

Life on a String is a beautiful, if not mysterious, fable that discusses the persistence of old age and the whims of youth. The old master persists in breaking all of the one thousand strings that the grandmaster has promised him would restore his eyesight. The young disciple is however in the more physical attractions of life. The film is both a philosophical and a coming-of-age film. While the old master struggles with his impending death and the impending result of a life's work, the young disciple is enchanted by the delights of youthful romance. The intersection of the duo's concerns erupts into conflict, depicted under the grand landscapes visualized by Chen and cinematographer Gu Changwei.

The deceit of the film that it blankets conflict with the serenity of the film's surroundings. A resulting suicide is drowned by the vastness of the valley, and Shitou's despair is heard at once with the howling wind. Drama is emphasized with nature's calmness. The old master's poignant resolution after being sung a song by a teahouse owner's wife is backdropped by a noisy and strong waterfalls. Most telling is the scene wherein the old master is pleaded to resolve an encounter between the two warring clans. The landscape shows the vast desert with hordes of men fighting. The old master sits in quiet assurance and sings a song that feels too big to come from his frail body. The result is miraculous and utterly hopeful. It must be remembered that the old master is considered a saint, and it is quite likely that the gods are singing through his music.

Chen's film is coupled with conflicts and contradictions. As explained above, dramatic and emotional turmoil is backdropped with serene scenery, the woes of old age and the innocent concerns of the youth intersect. Moreover, the film discusses hope, rejection, and finally resolution. The old master's sixty year journey to break all the strings ends, not with a miracle, as might be expected from Chen's fable-like filmmaking, but with an all too real revelation. Life is not about the result of one's handwork, but life is the handwork. As much as the old master has dedicated his life to play his banjo until the strings naturally break and finally give him the prescription for him to see, it is also about the fact that his life is the string, and the music that results from his persistence.

Springtime in a Small Town (2002)

Springtime in a Small Town (Tian Zhuangzhuang, 2002)
Mandarin Title: Xiao cheng zhi chun

Mu Fei's Spring in a Small Town (1948) has the distinction of being the greatest Chinese film ever made, at least according to a list created by a group of Chinese film critics. It's an odd choice. Spring in a Small Town is minimalistic. Its plot is sparse, and its characters are very few and quite disconnected from each other, as can be assessed from their disconcerted conversations with each other. However, Spring in a Small Town conveys an emotionality that is visibly astounding. It is free from any histrionics or melodramatics and possesses an inert intensity that gives inward meaning to the unfeeling conversations depicted on screen.

In 2002, after ten years of absence from filmmaking by oft-praised director Tian Zhuanzhuang, he releases his version of Mu's film entitled Springtime in a Small Town. Rather than completely reworking the storyline or the characters to fit into today's social climate, Tian faithfully follows Mu's film. His modifications only visible in slight plot details and visual style. Springtime in a Small Town is for Tian a handsome ode to the understated craftsmanship of these old Chinese film masters; where style and substance majestically weave in a product that is purely magical.

The plot is essentially the same. In a town ravaged by war, Liyan (Wu Jun), chronically ill and morose husband, and Yuwen (Hu Jingfan), dutiful yet emotionally distant wife, live in their estate along with their longtime servant Huang (Ye Xiao Keng) and Liyan's younger sister (Lu Si Si). Arriving alongside spring is Liyan's former schoolmate Zhang (Xin Bai Qing), who also turns out to be Yuwen's childhood sweetheart. Love triangles emerge as their lives suddenly intertwine during that short duration of time and within the small space enclosed by crumbling walls of that war-ravaged estate within a war-ravaged little town.

The biggest difference between Tian and Mu's films is that the latter is being told from Yuwen's perspective, as explicated by the narration. Tian goes for objectivity, removing the narration and implying that the story be told from a perspective of a disconnected outsider. Moreover, Mu's placing of the entire emotional dilemma as a burden of a single character focuses on feminine longing and regret which Tian's version lacks. Tian's film, while still peering Yuwen, is scattered in its presentation and the emotional impact. It is more focused on Zhang, the stranger, who is torn apart by his loyalty to his best friend, his lifelong longing for his best friend's wife, and that emerging reminder of his youth and the mistakes that go along with it in the personage of Liyan's younger sister. On the other hand, the narration in Mu's film culminates in an ending that fleshes out the theme of life's morose character, and that its stillness might be ruined by a visitor that brings with it memories of the past. It also reveals that there is life after the film's end, and Yuwen's feelings haven't faded along with the departure of Zhang. Thus, Mu's film brings with it the idea that the temporary stay of the visitor has caused ripples in that family's very still pond.

There are other differences: certain scenes are prolonged and actions are enunciated, an additional scene that fleshes out Zhang and Liyan's little sister's relationship, the characters are given more time to sit around, relax, and reflect on emotions and thoughts. Tian sees the need to envelop his audience with the complex happenings in the house. He wafts his camera like an observant spy through the courtyard, catching the characters during intimate confessionals, or in moments of solitary inactions, or in their dramatic or subtly romantic interludes.

The cinematography by Mark Li Ping-bing is exquisite. Li evokes a similar visual tone with the one he used in Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love (2000) to create an air of unaccomplished love affairs and strong emotions hiding in a wall of traditional propriety. His camera is constantly moving in careful yet deliberate fashion, making use of the house and the town's ruinous quality as instruments for his quiet observation. The hues are rich; the acting is subtle yet tremendous; the directing is sublime. The film is very very beautifully made. That said, while Mu's original film is arguably superior to Tian's remake, Tian's film undoubtedly holds considerable power.