We chose a couple of DVDs in the book store; one of them is 'Farewell, My Concubine'. When we played this DVD, I recognized it as <霸王别姬> in Chinese, which I had seen before. This film won Best Picture at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993. It contains many meaningful messages. I’ve had many thoughts after I watched it the second time:
The Peking opera’s tale of … I think…the concubine of the king knew that the king would lose power and she would become the bondservant or concubine of another. In order to prove her loyalty, chastity and faithfulness, she killed herself by sword.
The film’s tale of … I think…the old-style, rigorous rules in Peking opera training, a kid was frightened of his master’s punishment after he tried to escape from the group, so he hung himself. A woman was a prostitute, but she was brave enough to fight her fate and wanted to have a peaceful married life. But she was still jeered by people and betrayed by her husband. She hung herself because she felt hopeless that she couldn’t be accepted by anyone. A boy, trained to be a ‘female’ character in opera, became famous playing the concubine, but he couldn’t avoid being abused by people in power. Even though he wanted to play opera all his life, many people already lacked interest in it after the Cultural Revolution, and so there was no audience or appreciation in modern times. He felt all of his fame and fortune was gone and killed himself with a real sword while playing the concubine.
The tale in real life…the actor in the film who played the concubine is Leslie Cheung. He was a popular star with good fame and fortune but he committed suicide on April 1, 2003. Some might say he had love relationship problems… I think…he might have lost the ability to love himself…
11.9.07
No comments:
Post a Comment