Arguably China's most successful commercial director, Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛) has been famed for his contemporary black comedies that take a sober look at the nation's increasingly materialistic society. Yet in his latest film The Banquet (夜宴), Feng makes a swift shift from his previous lauded style, assembling an impeccable team for the sumptuous historical drama that is an idiosyncratic mixture of cinema and theater to tell of a classical tragedy in both Eastern and Western cultural contexts.
Loosely based on Shakespeare's Hamlet and infused with the spirit of Macbeth, the film is set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (10th century China), a tumultuous time of changing dynasties and murderous royal schemes haunting the empire. Emperor Li (Ge You) usurps the throne by murdering his brother, and lusts after the late emperor's young wife Empress Wan (Zhang Ziyi), who has harbored a secret love for her stepson Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu).
After Empress Wan — Wu's childhood sweetheart — becomes his stepmother and he exiles himself in a world of dance and music in a faraway land, the melancholy prince escapes the assassins dispatched by his uncle and returns to the palace for revenge.
Delicate by nature, Wu Luan fails to revenge his father's death. Empress Wan, now Li's wife, gradually realizes that in order to maintain her position and save her love, she must carry out the murder herself. Step by step, all the individuals are drawn into a labyrinth of their own making and led to a fated doom.
Under Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip's (葉錦添) visually opulent yet stately sets and the stifling, funeral color tones of deep black, green and crimson, the film successively creates a theatrical site where the power of tragedy resides in each individual's inability to control his or her life in the face of a downward-spiraling web of desire, love and lust. It's a sealed world where a sense of impending doom permeates the air of the imperial court and the destructive desire quietly devours its creators.
The highly stylized look of the film and sometimes overly literary dialogues have triggered criticism from critics and audiences, saying it is a failed hybrid of East and West and devoid of content. But in Feng's defense, the director takes up the challenge to play against the conventional and delivers a touch of ingenuity in what he calls an Eastern opera.
Take the introductory scene of Wu Luan for example. The masked dancers in white who surround the prince in a multi-tiered bamboo theater in a forest are shot in such visually stunning compositions that one can not fail to recognize the beauty inherent in modern theater.
Later when the new emperor's assassins reach the forest, the ensuing martial-art sequence is masterly transformed into a ballet dance heavily stylized with acrobatic stunts, flying and slow motion by renowned action choreographer Yuen Wo-ping (袁和平). The spraying blood on the bamboo theater stands in an intriguing contrast to the exquisite dance number where masked acrobats elude the swords with athletic stunts.
Compared to Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) hollow martial art flick House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏) and Chen Kaige's (陳凱歌) kung-fu fantasia The Promise (無極), The Banquet doesn't stray from an acceptable storyline, even though sometimes the less than modern choice of wording can seem contrived. A flaw to many, the singular blending of Shakespearean refinement and Feng's trademark sense of humor nevertheless maintains a fine balance without falling into a campy trap, eliciting hearty laughs rather than ridiculing sneers from the members of audiences.
The pronounced theatricality of the film may be both director Feng's achievement and failure. Yet in the colossal production where talented actors like Ge You, Zhang Ziyi, Daniel Wu and Zhou Xun meet the expectation to deliver convincing performances, Feng emerges as an unfamiliar figure in the eyes of those who typecast him as “master of humor” and daringly puts forth his innovative adaptation of the popular genre with a twist of avant-garde spirit.
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50