Shadow - a movie review
Shadow, the latest film by Zhang Yimou, won't appeal to American audiences for the same reasons that the Peking (Beijing) Opera has never found an appreciative American audience, except, of course for the comedy and acrobatics. Jackie Chan who started off in the Peking Opera, took those two aspects of Peking Opera and added American themes and did quite well. The high pitched voices and twangy musical instruments are too alien. I suspect, Mr. Yimou, who is getting older, was very pleased with this film. With it he has created a truly classic Chinese film. I suspect the film will be very successful in China and not just to an audience of thrill seeking, martial arts aficionados, but people who appreciate the ancient opera tradition of China much in the way that a lot of American still appreciate Shakespeare. The long Chinese classic novel The Dream of the Red Chamber tells the story of the Chinese social system much as Shakespeare told us about western society. Shadow is a cinematographic return to classic Chinese aesthetics and manners set in a martial arts guise. In making Shadow Zhang Yimou has returned to his homeland.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) attempted to extinguish the stratification of society based on education and wealth. During this brutal experiment Chinese cinema was non-existant. The first crop of film makers following the reopening of the universities were called the Fifth Generation. Zhang Yimou released his first film, Red Sorghum, in 1987 and followed it with Ju Duo and Raise the Red Lantern. These films used western non-linear storytelling to display the plight of the common man in China. The filmmakers of this era reached out to the west for their techniques, narrative and cinematography since Chinese film making had been non-existent for at least two decades.
In Shadow Yimou has come home to old China. The film is based on the Chinese scholar's arts (calligraphy, painting, music and the game of Go) and the principal of duality in all things. In the beginning of the film the king is portrayed as a practitioner of poetry and calligraphy, which he does badly in his drunken manner. He forces his courtiers to play music for him on the guzheng. Painting does not appear in the movie nor does the game of Go (often called Chinese chess) but the game of chess is referred to as symbolizing the maneuvering that is going on in the palace. The classic dualities of China, Yin and Yang, masculine and feminine, duty and passion, honor and shame, dark and light, constantly appear. In the best Chinese operatic sense the battling heroes are pitting swords against parasols. Even the band of war-umbrella carrying foot soldiers have a vaguely cross-dressing, make-up enhanced, appearance. All this from the same era of directors that gave the world the classic operatic, political drama Farewell My Concubine where men played the parts of women on stage and sometime found that role extending into real life.
To me it felt as if Zhang Yimou was making this film to bring the classic Chinese story telling and aesthetics into the modern world. He wanted to show how these ancient principles of storytelling and symbology can be relevant today by giving us an action packed love story with an indeterminate ending. The score of the film was completely, I believe, done with classic Chinese instruments. Without using the cartoon-like make-up of the Peking Opera his characters are right out of this old genre. If ever a film was meant to leap over the Cultural Revolution and bring old China into the modern world, this is it.
The Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) attempted to extinguish the stratification of society based on education and wealth. During this brutal experiment Chinese cinema was non-existant. The first crop of film makers following the reopening of the universities were called the Fifth Generation. Zhang Yimou released his first film, Red Sorghum, in 1987 and followed it with Ju Duo and Raise the Red Lantern. These films used western non-linear storytelling to display the plight of the common man in China. The filmmakers of this era reached out to the west for their techniques, narrative and cinematography since Chinese film making had been non-existent for at least two decades.
In Shadow Yimou has come home to old China. The film is based on the Chinese scholar's arts (calligraphy, painting, music and the game of Go) and the principal of duality in all things. In the beginning of the film the king is portrayed as a practitioner of poetry and calligraphy, which he does badly in his drunken manner. He forces his courtiers to play music for him on the guzheng. Painting does not appear in the movie nor does the game of Go (often called Chinese chess) but the game of chess is referred to as symbolizing the maneuvering that is going on in the palace. The classic dualities of China, Yin and Yang, masculine and feminine, duty and passion, honor and shame, dark and light, constantly appear. In the best Chinese operatic sense the battling heroes are pitting swords against parasols. Even the band of war-umbrella carrying foot soldiers have a vaguely cross-dressing, make-up enhanced, appearance. All this from the same era of directors that gave the world the classic operatic, political drama Farewell My Concubine where men played the parts of women on stage and sometime found that role extending into real life.
To me it felt as if Zhang Yimou was making this film to bring the classic Chinese story telling and aesthetics into the modern world. He wanted to show how these ancient principles of storytelling and symbology can be relevant today by giving us an action packed love story with an indeterminate ending. The score of the film was completely, I believe, done with classic Chinese instruments. Without using the cartoon-like make-up of the Peking Opera his characters are right out of this old genre. If ever a film was meant to leap over the Cultural Revolution and bring old China into the modern world, this is it.
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