Tag: Lü Qi

The Storm (大雨, Yang Zhigang, 2024)

February 12, 2024by Hayley Scanlon

A cosmic storm is likened to the chaos of life in Busifan’s beautifully drawn but narratively obscure family animation, The Storm (大雨, dàyǔ). Set seemingly in a fantasy past which is also a kind of post-apocalyptic future in which mankind has ruined itself through greed, the film is at heart a kind of redemption story in which those left behind attempt to exorcise the negative emotions of the past and ease the destruction they have wrought by abandoning outdated ideas of wealth and status.

The hero, Bun, is a young orphan adopted by the elusive Biggie who found him drifting down a river in a chest. Biggie decided to adopt the boy as his own but never allowed him to call him father while himself struggling the stigma of having been a criminal. Biggie sometimes leaves Bun on his own while he goes off to try and earn money to give him a better life and justifies his actions that everything he’s doing is only for Bun. Later in the film he expresses regret for “lying” to him, pretending the world was not so chaotic as is it is as the pair become embroiled in a supernatural curse while looking for the famed Nuralumin Satin said to be aboard a mysterious black ship filled with monsters.

According to biggie, the Black Dragon Army hunting the Nuralumin birds into extinction led to an explosion in the jellyfish population while a prophesy states that the jellyfish will soon unite with another monstrous force during a cosmic storm becoming an awesome dragon that casts a shadow over the land. The ship itself seems to be a symbol of insatiable greed, a kind of floating marketplace in which people entered in search of riches but did not leave again. Inside, they became monsters devoid of all humanity and hungry only for material gain.

The king’s own mother is said to have fallen victim to the curse, while his nephew also knew a troupe of opera singers who boarded the boat in search of an audience but have apparently lost their way. The spirits of the opera singers recount their plight, that as lowly entertainers they were only ever looked down on and abused no matter if they entertained the king himself and all his other royals. That they fell victim to the curse seems to be a condemnation of outdated ideas about social class and the stigmatisation of a profession, while Biggie’s fate seems to imply something similar. No matter how much he tried to turn himself around and be a good father to Bun, the world continued to reject him and he was left only with crime as a means to support himself. That’s one reason he wants the Satin, so that Bun will be looked after for the rest of his life and they won’t have to debase themselves anymore.

We can see that the area they live in which is close to the famed Dragon Bay where the Black Ship eventually resurfaces is rundown and abandoned perhaps itself because of the lore that surrounds the area. Even so, the backgrounds are gorgeously animated with flowers in full bloom and Bun making his way through colourful and lively vistas of rural beauty. Yet it’s just this beauty that mankind’s greed has destroyed in the Dragon Army’s senseless killing of the Numalurin birds for which their guardian tribe has never forgiven them. Only the return of these birds and the giant deity that protects them can help end the curse, restoring the proper balance to the land in which the jellyfish are kept in check and the dragon cannot be formed.

It has to be said that narratively the film is incredibly confusing and difficult to follow, at least for viewers who do not speak Mandarin. Nevertheless, what shines through is Bun’s redemptive power as he desperately tries to rescue Biggie from his own worst impulses, his greed and desperation in being drawn to the black ship like moth to a flame and in danger of being turned into one of the monsters. Constantly accompanied by round ball of fluff he encounters several other cute creatures while otherwise guided by a handsome young man who seems to be made of cloud while his wish that he really could stop Biggie from leaving by treading on his shadow might in an odd way come true. Boundlessly inventive, the film’s ideas sometimes get ahead of itself but are more than made up for in the unshowy beauty of its fantasy world.

International trailer (Simplified Chinese / English subtitles)

Ne Zha (哪吒之魔童降世, Jiaozi, 2019)

September 5, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

Can you choose who you are, or is your identity constructed by accidents of birth and the society all around you? It’s a complicated question and even more so if you happen to have been born part demon thanks to a cosmological mixup. An origin movie of sorts for the titular hero familiar to most from classical Chinese folklore, Ne Zha (哪吒之魔童降世, Nézhā zhī Mótóng Jiàngshì) asks just that through the story of an extremely naughty, all powerful little boy who might be evil or just misunderstood and resentfully lonely because of the prejudice held against him by those fearful of his differences.

The trouble begins with the Chaos Pill which can pull power from sun and moon equally, threatening the integrity of the universe itself. Thankfully, the Heavenly King manages to split it into the Demon Pill and the Spirit Pill, enclosing both inside a lotus flower. He intends to send the Spirit Pill into the third son of general Li Jing (Chen Hao) and has put a curse on the Demon Pill so that it will be destroyed by lightening in three years’ time. Predictably nothing goes to plan because drunken deity Taiyi Zhenren (Zhang Jiaming) fails to stop the evil Shen Gongbao (Yang Wei) sending his minions in to steal the Spirit Pill and use it for his own ends. The Demon Pill ends up in the son of Li Jing, Ne Zha (Lü Yanting), who emerges from his mother’s womb as a bouncing ball of flesh before transforming himself into a small boy and proceeding to wreak havoc all over town.

Doting parents Li Jing and Madam Yin (Lü Qi) refuse to believe their son is all “bad” but recognise that they have a duty to the townspeople who are quickly fed up with Ne Zha’s antics and traumatised by years of being terrorised by “demons”. They would rather do away with the irascible little rascal, but could it be that he’s just bored and lonely? Given the increased demon threat, Madam Yin is often away slaying things and regrets she doesn’t have more time for her son while the other kids are afraid of him, both for quite rational reasons and also because his main way of making friends is quite mean. Increasingly resentful at being shunned as a “demon”, Ne Zha strikes back at the villagers in ways which are really just naughty rather than actually “evil” but obviously aren’t going to win him any friends.

Having failed to get help from the Heavenly Father who has predictably waltzed off for a bit as gods seem to do anytime there’s an actual problem in the mortal realm that they probably caused through inefficient planning, Li Jing decides to lie to his son that he’s really the Spirit Pill and has a duty to slay demons and help mankind. The deception begins to work. Imprisoned in a painting where Zhenren tries to teach him useful magic, Ne Zha takes his new responsibilities seriously, eventually escaping and trying to rescue a little girl who has been kidnapped by a water troll. Sadly, he goes about it all wrong and the townspeople embrace their prejudice to jump to the conclusion that he kidnapped the kid himself and has become even more dangerous.

Meanwhile, evil Shen Gongbao faces a similar problem as a deity shunned because he’s jaguar spirit who took human form. Allying with the villainous Dragons who have been given an ironic punishment to run a prison from which they can’t escape either, he gives the Spirit Pill to their bright hope Ao Bing (Han Mo) who, mirroring Ne Zha, struggles to accept his “evil” parentage and continues to do good and noble things behind his parents’ backs. Meeting by chance, the pair became friends but inevitably have to do battle before realising that they are two halves of one whole and thus represent a kind of salvation in linking hands rather than raising them.

Ao Bing, despite himself, is the more filial in that he thinks he has to accept the “destiny” his parents have given him as a liberator even if he doesn’t quite agree with their methods or reasoning. Ne Zha, by contrast, concludes that his fate is to resist his fate. He might not win, but he’ll fight it all the way and decide for himself who he is rather than allowing others to tell him. Genuinely funny, filled with amusing gags, and packed full of heart, Ne Zha is a gorgeously animated family fantasy and an impassioned advocation for living by your own principles while refusing to be bound by the unsolicited opinions of others.

Currently on limited cinema release courtesy of Cine Asia in the UK, and Well Go in the US.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬, Chen Kaige, 1993)

March 21, 2016December 24, 2019by Hayley Scanlon1 Comment

farewell-my-concubine-1993 — French DVD cover

Review of Chen Kaige’s 1993 masterpiece Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬, Bàwáng Bié Jī) first published by UK Anime Network.

“Why does the concubine have to die?” Spanning 53 years of turbulent, mid twentieth century history, Farewell My Concubine is often regarded as the masterpiece of fifth generation director Chen Kaige and one of the films which finally brought Chinese cinema to global attention in the early 1990s. Neatly framing the famous Peking Opera as a symbol of its nation’s soul, the film centres on two young actors who find themselves at the mercy of forces far beyond their control.

Beginning in 1924, Douzi (later Cheng Dieyi) is sold to an acting troupe by his prostitute mother who can no longer care for him. The life in the theatre company is hard – the boys are taught the difficult skills necessary for performing the traditional art form through “physical reinforcement” where beatings and torturous treatment are the norm. Douzi is shunned by the other boys because of his haughty attitude and place of birth but eventually finds a friend in Shitou (later Duan Xiaolou) who would finally become the king to his concubine and a lifelong companion, for good or ill.

Time moves on and the pair become two of the foremost performers of their roles in their generation much in demand by fans of the Opera. However, personal and political events eventually intervene as Xiaolou decides to take a wife, Juxian – formerly a prostitute, and shortly after the Japanese reach the city. Coerced by various forces, Dieyi makes the decision to perform for the Japanese but Xiaolou refuses. After the Japanese have been defeated Dieyi is tried as a traitor though both Xiaolou and Juxian come to his rescue. The pair run in to trouble again during the civil war, but worse is to come during the “Cultural Revolution” in which the ancient art of Peking Opera itself is denounced as a bourgeois distraction and its practitioners forced into a very public self criticism conducted in full costume with their precious props burned in front of them. It’s not just artifice which goes up in smoke either as the two are browbeaten into betraying each other’s deepest, darkest secrets.

Farewell My Concubine is a story of tragic betrayal. Dieyi, placed in the role of the concubine without very much say in the matter, is betrayed by everyone at every turn. Abandoned by his mother, more or less prostituted by the theatre company who knowingly send him to an important man who molests him after a performance and then expect him to undergo the same thing again as a grown man when an important patron of the arts comes to visit, rejected by Xiaolou when he decides to marry a prostitute and periodically retires from the opera, and finally betrayed by having his “scandalous” secret revealed in the middle of a public square. He’s a diva and a narcissist, selfish in the extreme, but he lives only for his art, naively ignorant of all political concerns.

Dieyi doesn’t just perform Peking Opera, he lives it. His world is one of grand emotions and an unreal romanticism. Xiaolou by contrast is much more pragmatic, he just wants to do his job and live quietly. On the other hand, Xiaolou refuses to perform for the Japanese (the correct decision in the long run), and has a fierce temper and ironic personality which often get him into just as much trouble as Dieyi’s affected persona. The two are as bound and as powerless as the King and the Concubine, each doomed and unable to save each other from the inevitable suffering dealt them by the historical circumstances of their era.

The climax of the opera Farewell My Concubine comes as the once powerful king is finally defeated and forced to flee with only his noble steed left beside him. He begs his beloved concubine to run to sanctuary but such is her love for him that she refuses and eventually commits suicide so that the king can escape unburdened by worry for her safety. Dieyi’s tragedy is that he lives the role of the concubine in real life. Unlike Xiaolou, his romanticism (and a not insignificant amount of opium) cloud his view of the world as it really is.

It’s not difficult to read Dieyi as a cipher for his nation which has also placed an ideal above the practical demands of real living people with individual emotions of their own. Farewell My Concubine ran into several problems with the Chinese censors who objected not only to the (actually quite subtle) homosexual themes, but also to the way China’s recent history was depicted. Later scenes including one involving a suicide in 1977, not to mention the sheer absurd horror of the Cultural Revolution are all things the censors would rather not acknowledge as events which took place after the birth of the glorious communist utopia but Farewell My Concubine is one of the first attempts to examine such a traumatic history with a detached eye.

Casting Peking Opera as the soul of China, Farewell My Concubine is the story of a nation betraying itself. Close to the end when Dieyi is asked about the new communist operas he says he finds them unconvincing and hollow in comparison to the opulence and grand emotions of the classical works. Something has been shed in this abnegation of self that sees the modern state attempting to erase its true nature by corrupting its very heart. Full of tragic inevitability and residual anger over the unacknowledged past, Farewell My Concubine is both a romantic melodrama of unrequited love and also a lament for an ancient culture seemingly intent on destroying itself from the ground up.

Farewell My Concubine is released on blu-ray in the UK by BFI on 21st March 2016.

Original US trailer (with annoying voice over):