Farewell My Concubine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Farewell My Concubine | |
|---|---|
| Image:Farewell1.jpg Movie poster Cannes Film Festival | |
| Directed by | Chen Kaige |
| Produced by | Feng Hsu |
| Written by | Lilian Lee (also novel) Bik-Wa Lei Wei Lu |
| Starring | Leslie Cheung Fengyi Zhang Gong Li |
| Music by | Jiping Zhao |
| Cinematography | Changwei Gu |
| Editing by | Xiaonan Pei |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release date(s) | 1993 |
| Running time | 171 min. |
| Language | Mandarin |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Farewell My Concubine (Traditional Chinese: 霸王別姬; Simplified Chinese: 霸王别姬; pinyin: Bàwáng Bié Jī; Translation: Overlord Leaves Concubine) is a Chinese Fifth Generation film directed by Chen Kaige in 1993. It is considered by critics to be one of the main pillars of the Fifth Generation movement that turned the eyes of audiences across the world towards the Chinese film directors of that period. The movie is an adaptation of the novel written by Lilian Lee.
Contents |
[edit] Plot Summary
Like several other Chinese Fifth Generation films, Farewell My Concubine tells the story of human lives amidst the backdrop of China's turbulent political landscape during the mid-20th century. In this case, the lives are those of two Peking opera performers and the woman who comes between them.
The story begins in 1924 with the introduction of Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung), the unwanted child of a Beijing prostitute. Dieyi, who possesses a noticeable birth defect in that of a superfluous finger, is seen as a burden by his mother, and so she pleads with a local opera troupe to take him under his wing so that she can finally be rid of him. The troupe refuses because of the boy's unfortunate condition, so his mother in frustration amputates the boy's extra finger with a butcher knife. Now allowed to be a member of the troupe, Dieyi quickly attaches himself to Duan Xiaolou (Fengyi Zhang), a young actor with talent, bravado, and a short temper.
The children of the troupe endure brutal, austere, and traumatizing training. After Dieyi and the charismatic leader of the bunch escape and finally get a taste of the outside world and some crab apples, they watch Beijing opera performers. Dieyi, struck by their performance and the applause of the audience, cries and decides they should head back to the troupe. The punishment for escaping in the first place is so traumatic the other boy hangs himself. Dieyi is trained to play female roles, particularly the title role of the traditional Chinese opera play "Farewell My Concubine." When he kept forgetting his line "I was born a girl," he faces severe punishment both from the master of the troupe. Xiaolou learns to hone his skills as a jing, a painted-face male lead.
Both Dieyi and Xiaolou graduate from the troupe and become renowned stars of the Peking opera scene. It becomes apparent that Dieyi has developed an attraction to Xiaolou, but his sexual aspects of the affection is not returned. Xiaolou, in the meantime, takes a liking to Juxian (Gong Li), a headstrong prostitute at the local brothel. Xiaolou intervenes when a mob of drunk men harass Juxian and conjures up a ruse to get the men to leave her alone, saying that they're announcing their engagement. Juxian later buys her freedom and, deceiving him into thinking she was thrown out, pressures Xiaolou to keep his word. When Xiaolou announces his engagement to Dieyi, the two begin to fall out.
The complex relationship between these three characters is then tested under the stress of the drastic political upheaval that encompasses China from the onset of the Second Sino-Japanese War. From there, it examines both the characters' lives and the Chinese perception of Peking opera as they both endure the Kuomintang regime, the Chinese Revolution, and the Cultural Revolution. The portrayal of these events led the film to be initially banned in China upon its release.
[edit] The Play Itself
Running parallel with the film is the actual Peking opera play that is also known as Farewell My Concubine. As Dieyi and Xiaoluo gain fame and notoriety within Peking opera's social circles, this play becomes Dieyi and Xiaolou's staple act and is performed numerous times throughout the film.
The play itself tells the story of Xiang Yu (232 BC - 202 BC), the self-styled "Overlord of Western Chu" who battled for the unification of China with Liu Bang, the eventual founder of the powerful Han Dynasty. In the play, Xiang Yu is surrounded by Liu Bang's forces and is on the verge of total defeat, so he calls forth his horse and begs it to run away for the sake of its own safety. Against his wishes, the horse refuses. He then calls for the company of his favorite concubine, Yu Ji. Realizing the dire situation that has befallen them, she begs to die alongside her master, but he strongly refuses this wish. Afterwards, as he is distracted, Yu Ji commits suicide with Xiang Yu's own sword.
Notably, the play itself is not nearly as long as the film may make it seem and can actually be performed from start to finish within fifteen minutes.
[edit] Themes
[edit] Sex, gender, sexuality, and acting
The repressed sexual desires of men throughout the movie find outlets in opera concubines and prostitutes. Dieyi is raped by an old and influential patron as a child after an impressive performance as the Concubine (In fact, it is more than a rape, because this influential patron was a chamberlain, a eunuch. As a fact that those eunuches are male, but never really male, they have abnormal sexual psychology. Therefore, Dieyi suffered a unexpecting hurt physically and mentally). When they become a hit in Beijing, a patron slowly courts Dieyi also after falling in love with Dieyi's character. Dieyi is the son of a prostitute, while Juxian also is one. Opera can also be an escape from sexual demands. Dieyi's mother takes him from the brothel to the opera troupe. Juxian walks out of her brothel into Xiaoluo's arms.
Dieyi's female roles play an ambiguous role in the formation of his behavior. As an adult, his real-life demeanor is feminine, he lusts after Xiaoluo, and has a relationship with a male patron. The Concubine's fatal devotion to her doomed emperor is echoed by Dieyi's devotion to Xiaoluo. At one point in the film, Xiaoluo snaps to Dieyi, "I'm just an actor playing an emperor. You really are Yu Ji." The parallels between the play's Concubine and the film's Dieyi culminate in the end of the film.
[edit] Political upheaval, changing fortunes, and betrayal
As Beijing shifts from Qing to Japanese to Nationalist to Communist to Cultural-Revolution-era Communist rule, the characters endure political upheavals which test their loyalty to each other. The eunuch who raped Dieyi goes insane, Dieyi's rich lover is executed by Communists, and Dieyi and Xiaoluo rise from poverty and fall from grace repeatedly. As the characters, including a boy Dieyi adopts and brings under his strict tutelage, betray each other one by one, Dieyi holds onto the ideal of loyalty to the end promulgated by the play.
The opera Farewell my conbubine is a story of loyalty. Dieyi and Xiaolou's teacher has taught them that loyalty is the first moral principle they have to follow. Dieyi follows his loyalty to his art, to his husband Xiaolou in his life. He can do everything just for saving Xiaolou's life. Although he was deeply hurted by Xiaolou's betray, he was still stick on his phase: to be loyal to him. Therefore, his death is a ineluctable ending. To be loyal is also the moral principle of Chinese: subjects could never discard their lord, sons could never betray their father and wives could never cheat their husband. But this principle has been being under a test for decades. The wars, both self-defence from Japanese and national war; the cultural-revolution, the memory of tough lifes, everything is a challenge to their pinciples. To be loyal, is such a nihility when lifes are danger.
[edit] Awards and nominations
- Won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival - 1993. The Palme d'Or was shared with Jane Campion's The Piano from New Zealand (1993).
- Won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival - 1993
- Won the Best Film not in the English Language BAFTA (British Academy Award) - 1993
- Won the Mainichi Film Concours for Best Foreign Language Film at Mainichi Film Concours -1993
- Won the Golden Globe award for the Best Foreign Language Film - 1993
- Won the Best Foreign Film of National Board of Review (USA) - 1992
- Won the Best Foreign Film of L.A. Film Critics Association - 1993
- Won the Best Foreign Language Film of Boston Society of Film Critics Awards - 1993
- Won the Best Actor Award for Foreign Movie of Japanese Critic Society (Leslie Cheung) - 1994
- Won the Special Award of Chinese Performance Art Association, mainland China, (Leslie Cheung) - 1993
- Won the New York Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Foreign Language Film - 1993
- Won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Li Gong) - 1993
- Won the Special Award of Political Film Society, USA - 1993
- Won the Silver Frog Award (Changwei Gu)at International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography (Camerimage) -1993
- Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (Oscar) - 1993
- Nominated for the César Award for Best Foreign Film (Meilleur film étranger) - 1994
- Nominated for the Golden Frog Award (Changwei Gu) at International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography (Camerimage) -1993
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Farewell My Concubine at the Internet Movie Database
- A film review with emphasis on the relationship between the play and the film
- An essay on Farewell, My Concubine and other similar Fifth Generation Films
| The Films of Chen Kaige |
|---|
| Yellow Earth (1984) • The Big Parade (1986) • King of Children (1987) • Life on a String (1991) • Farewell, My Concubine (1992) Temptress Moon (1996) • The Emperor and the Assassin (1999) Killing Me Softly (2002) • Together (2003) • The Promise (2005) |
ja:さらば、わが愛/覇王別姫 ru:Прощай, моя наложница (фильм) vi:Bá Vương biệt cơ zh:霸王別姬 (電影)
