Chad Thomas Johnston [email protected]

Flowering in the Shadow of Red Sorghum: A Look at a Lesser Trilogy by

Introduction

Writing of Zhang Yimou’s debut, Red Sorghum (1987), Washington Post critic Desson Howe wrote, “If (Zhang’s) debut were any better, he'd have to be tested for artistic steroids.”1 Indeed, with Red Sorghum, Zhang’s cinematic signature was immediately that of an artist whose canvas was splashed with wine and blood. Red was so prominent in his debut that it might be seen as a character in the film and, for that matter, one he could not resist recasting in his subsequent works (1990) and (1991).

An overview of his early career would be incomplete without acknowledging his cinematography in Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth (1984) and his acting in Wu Tianming’s Old Well (1987) and Siu‐Tung Ching’s A Terracotta Warrior (1990). However, his early years as a filmmaker are most commonly defined by his signature style; his use of color, his allegorical cultural critiques, his reliance on female protagonists, and his preoccupation with individualism despite China’s orientation toward collectivism. The tone of these films might best be described as tragic, bleak, or fatalistic. Zhang’s ability to simultaneously celebrate and lament Chinese culture surely contributed to the Chinese government’s decisions to either censor or ban his early releases.

As Zhang continued to release films, he began to reinvent his visual style with the cinema verité approach of The Story of Qiu Ju (1992), a film that was embraced by Chinese censors because it seemed supportive of the government. Then came To Live (1994), a film that focused on one family’s tragic experiences in order to tell the story of the sociopolitical transformations that occurred in China during the 20th century. According to Cornelius and Smith, “(To Live)’s criticism of Chinese society under Mao resulted in official condemnation from the Chinese authorities whose strict censure nearly cut short the director’s career. As punishment, Zhang was banned from making films for five years… This decision was later rescinded.”2 To Live was followed by the apolitical gangster film (1995), which garnered critical acclaim for Zhang but failed to be as provocative as his previous releases.

Following this period, there was a brief lull in Zhang’s career until he released Keep Cool (1997), a highly stylized venture set in contemporary China that “draws heavily from the frenetic style of Hong Kong cinema,” including the works Wong Kar‐Wai in particular.3 As of the present writing, this film can only be purchased through international channels, and an English‐subtitled version has yet to be released.4 The next three films Zhang Yimou 2

– The Road Home (1999), (1999), and Happy Times (2000) – continued to focus on Zhang’s preoccupation with contemporary China. Unlike his earlier works, however, these films largely avoided tragic characterizations and plot resolutions. Additionally, unlike the informally titled “Red Trilogy” (comprised of Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, and Raise the Red Lantern), this trilogy is often overlooked in examinations of Zhang’s oeuvre. The purpose of this essay is to explore The Road Home, Not One Less, and Happy Times in light of the other films in Zhang Yimou’s canon, comparing and contrasting them to his other works. Before differentiating this trilogy from Zhang’s previous works, however, it is necessary to summarize the plots of The Road Home, Not One Less, and Happy Times.

Plot Summaries

The Road Home weds the rural and the urban, the past and the present, to tell the story of a teacher’s legacy. At the beginning of the film, the viewer discovers that the teacher, a man named Luo Yusheng (Sun Honglei), has died. His son, Luo Changyu (Zheng Hao), is returning to his father’s village to assist with the funeral. Upon his return, Changyu learns from his mother, Zhao Di (Zhao Yulian), that his father’s body is in another town, and his mother wants the body to be carried home by pallbearers on foot.

Changyu sees a picture of his mother and father when they were young, and the film transports the viewer to this time period. The temporal shift is signified by an unusual change: the film, which up to this point has been black and white, suddenly shifts to highly saturated color. It is as if Zhang wants the past to be understood as richer and more vibrant than the present. The majority of the remainder of the film is set in this idyllic past, and follows the blooming romance of Yusheng and Di.

Their romance is a welcome departure from Hollywood fare, characterized by an innocence and simplicity that is virtually unknown in contemporary American culture. Yusheng is the village’s new teacher, and as the townspeople construct a new schoolhouse for the local children, Di finds herself inexplicably drawn to him. The story is told from Di’s perspective, and the viewer is able to enter into her subjective experiences through numerous extreme close‐ups. Her infatuation with Yusheng is fundamentally incompatible with the village culture’s arranged marriage traditions. Although her attempts to win Yusheng’s attention and affection do not go unnoticed, her mother discourages her from persisting in her pursuit of him. On top of this, Yusheng is sent to the city for a time, and Di faithfully awaits his return by the side of the road. As she waits for him, the road gains symbolic meaning, becoming a metaphor for their relationship’s journey.

At the end of the film, when the story returns to the present and the film once again shifts to black and white, it becomes apparent that Di wants Yusheng’s body carried home along the road because it is their road. Furthermore, as multitudes of Yusheng’s Zhang Yimou 3

students volunteer to carry his casket down the road, the scene beautifully testifies to the impact of his work as a teacher. A good teacher’s impact is never forgotten. Or as Michael Wilmington writes in the Chicago Tribune, “These are not small lives and (this is not) a little story – as the film’s end clearly shows.”5

Not One Less continues this celebration of teaching, focusing on a 13‐year‐old substitute teacher named Wei Minzhi. Regarding his interest in teaching, Zhang describes visiting small rural elementary schools and being touched by the lessons he overheard. He concludes that “These scenes … left a deep impression on me … I can’t explain why, but every time I go to a new place that has an elementary school, I’ll always go and take a look. Shooting a story about a mountain village elementary school has actually been my dream for many years.”6

Unlike The Road Home, in which the school itself is peripheral to the romance narrative of Di and Yusheng, Not One Less places the camera squarely in the midst of the classroom. In particular, the film “deals with the dropout problem in China’s rural areas,” focusing on the young teacher’s “tremendous efforts to keep her pupils in school to receive an education.”7

Also, unlike The Road Home, all of the characters in the film play themselves in true neorealist fashion. That is, Wei Minzhe is played by none other than Wei Minzhe. Zhang explains that “The schoolteachers, headmasters, and boss of (the) television station, even the doorman, are people who play those roles in life.”8 Zhang relied exclusively on this casting technique for the film, using their acting inexperience to evoke authentic performances.

At the beginning of the film, the adolescent Wei is charged with the responsibility of teaching an entire classroom full of elementary school students in the village of Shuixian while their regular teacher, a man named Gao, leaves school to care for his dying mother. On his way out of town, he explains to Wei that “More than ten (students) have already left … If all the students are here when I get back – not one less – you’ll get an extra ten yuan.”9 Wei is inexperienced but determined to earn her wages. As such, she does everything in her power to retain all of the students.

As the film progresses, she discovers that her most troublesome student, Zhang Huike, has been sent to the city by his parents to pursue work so he can pay the family’s debts. Still determined to earn her extra ten yuan, she attempts to earn money for a bus ticket to the city by putting her students to work in the local brickyard. Ultimately, however, she walks and hitchhikes to the city to find Zhang. At the beginning of her time as a teacher, she is solely motivated by the prospect of financial gain. During the course of the film, however, she begins to genuinely care for her students. Her relentless search for Zhang Huike becomes an emotionally charged event, culminating in her pleading for Zhang’s return on the local news. By fortuitous coincidence, Zhang happens to see the broadcast. Teacher and student are reunited, and viewers of the news broadcast Zhang Yimou 4

donate money to Zhang Huike and the village school, enabling Zhang to return to the village for an education.

The story recalls the parable of the lost sheep chronicled in Luke 15:3‐7 in the Bible, in which Jesus talks about a shepherd who “has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.”10 He continues, saying

Does he not leave the ninety‐nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety‐nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.11

The idea of the lost being found is prevalent throughout the three films that comprise Zhang Yimou’s trilogy. In The Road Home, for example, Di loses a precious hairclip that Yusheng gives her, and painstakingly retraces her steps to find it. Of course, when Yusheng is forced to go to the city, she temporarily loses him as well. The third film in the trilogy, Happy Times, explores this theme in a different manner.

Happy Times tells the story of Zhao (Zhao Benshan), a man who is lost when it comes to his own life. He appears to be in his 40s, yet has nothing to show for himself; he has no wife, and a suitable vocation seems to have eluded him as well. A hapless, hopeless sort, he is a ship adrift at sea, unable to find a place to weigh anchor.

Two narrative branches inform the development of the film, eventually converging as the film finds its feet. In the first scene of the film, he discusses marriage with a portly woman (Lifan Dong) who has been married two times and has two children. As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that the woman is single for a reason: she is a brassy, brutish beast. Her spoiled son (Qibin Leng) is a male, miniature version of her. Her stepdaughter Wu Ying (Jie Dong), on the other hand, is the anomaly of the family, a sensitive blind girl who is as sweet as her stepmother is sour.

Zhao’s friend Li (Xuejian Li), on the other hand, persuades Zhao to go into business with him. This, however, proves to be no everyday enterprise. Li explains that he wants to transform an old, abandoned bus into a lovers’ retreat. “I even have a name for the place,” Li explains. “We’ll call it the ‘Happy Times Hut.’”12 This idea turns out to be as ridiculous in practice as it is in theory.

These two storylines converge as Zhao becomes more involved with the aforementioned nameless, portly woman he is courting. To win her affections, he explains that he is the manager of a hotel called – you guessed it – the “Happy Times Hut.” Wu Ying needs a job, and her stepmother all but commands Zhao to employ her as a masseuse. In any other situation, the charade would be over at this point. Zhang Yimou 5

However, because Wu Ying is blind, Zhao is able to construct an elaborate approximation of a hotel massage parlor, simulating outdoor street noise with a cassette player, and supplying a steady stream of customers in the form of his unemployed friends. He is able to maintain this elaborate hoax for awhile, but Wu eventually reveals that she is aware of the fabrication.

While she is in Zhao’s imaginary employ, however, something much more beautiful and subtle happens. Far from merely playing a part in his romantic misadventures, she becomes a daughter to him, and he becomes a father to her. This relationship forms the core of the film, and its tenderness calls to mind other films that explore similar territory, including Zhang Yang’s Shower (2000), Takeshi Kitano’s Kikujiro (1999), and – more significantly – Zhang Yimou’s recent effort, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005).

Analysis of the Trilogy: Comparison and Contrast

It is difficult to analyze this trilogy apart from Zhang Yimou’s other work. He first gained international renown through culturally rebellious works like Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, and Raise the Red Lantern. Since these films are often identified as the most important pieces of Zhang’s filmic canon, the analysis here will primarily compare and contrast The Road Home, Not One Less, and Happy Times with them in an attempt to see how Zhang’s signature as an auteur has varied throughout the years. In particular, this analysis will focus on his usage of female protagonists, his focus on ordinary people, and the dramatic tone of his films.

A Propensity for Female Protagonists

Zhang Yimou has built the majority of his films around female protagonists, as if magnetized by their screen allure in a manner that would make Laura Mulvey proud. In the “Red Trilogy,” Zhang positions as the centerpiece. She does not play the stereotypically diminutive Chinese woman, however. In Red Sorghum, her character J’iuer is the boss of the 18‐Mile Slope winery, and she is the one who calls for revenge when the Japanese publicly flay her friend Luohan. In Ju Dou, she plays the victim of spousal abuse, but uses her charms as a temptress to outmaneuver and exact revenge upon her cruel husband. In Raise the Red Lantern, her character Songlian is oppressed by a faceless, nameless patriarchal figure, but she refuses to be broken by the system. All three of these characters are strong, assertive women who wage war with their oppressors and wield their bodies and minds as tools and weapons that can be used to achieve desired ends.

In The Road Home, Zhang introduces Zhang Ziyi to the world, a woman who – in the minds of some – is his new Gong Li. Zhang’s offscreen affair with Gong Li ended during their collaboration on Shanghai Triad, and they did not work together again until 2006’s Curse of the Golden Flower. With Zhang’s predisposition toward focusing on female Zhang Yimou 6

protagonists then, he had to find a new muse. Zhang Ziyi fills this role, and Zhang Yimou’s camera is the perfect vessel for channeling her transcendent presence in the film. Washington Post critic Desson Howe asserts that “Director Zhang Yimou focuses so frequently on (Zhang) Ziyi's face in extreme close‐up that she sticks like a daguerreotype to your retina – and then your heart.”13 In this way her luminous presence recalls Gong Li and establishes continuity between The Road Home and Zhang’s previous efforts.

In contrast, however, Zhang Ziyi’s character Di is in no way the logical descendent of Gong Li’s fiery femmes. While Di’s love for the teacher flowers in a time when arranged marriages were dominant, and while she is absolutely determined to pursue the teacher in the face of adversity, her break with tradition is far less controversial. The melodrama that characterizes Zhang’s early films is absent here, and therefore the tidal waves of tragedy that washed away all semblances of serenity are reduced to the ebb and flow of everyday emotional tides. He is not dealing with dynamite here, so he handles his subject matter in a much less volatile manner. Additionally, Di’s beauty is not so much eroticized as it is celebrated. There is an innocence here that conjures up wistful nostalgia and youthful infatuation rather than the sort of erotic intrigue that is present in the Zhang’s earlier work.

In Not One Less, Wei Minzhe’s character is shrewd despite her seemingly simple exterior. She is essentially a child, but when it comes to pursuing the money she has been promised, she is relentless. Like all of Zhang Yimou’s female protagonists, her story is one of determination. Undeterred by financial, geographic, or cultural stumbling blocks, she searches for Zhang Huike until she finds him. On the other hand, even more so than Di in The Road Home, she represents a departure from Zhang’s typical protagonists because her characterization does not include a sexual element at all. She is female, but only biologically. More than anything, she recalls Gong Li’s character in The Story of Qiu Ju. When a public official kicks Qiu Ju’s husband in the groin, she relentlessly pursues justice, beginning with the local court and progressing all the way to the highest court in China. She and Wei Minzhe both defy archetypal female roles and offer alternative ways of thinking about what it means to be Chinese and female.

In Happy Times, Wu Ying’s character is a pillar of strength. She blossoms into a mature, promising young woman despite – or as a result of – the adversity she faces in the form of blindness and verbal abuse from her family. Unlike Gong Li’s characters in Zhang’s earlier work, or Wei Minzhe in Not One Less, Wu Ying’s agency is not defined by willful determination. She is the introverted equivalent of these characters, turning her determination inward where it strengthens her resolve but does not manifest in the form of action. Her quiet strength burns quietly like a candle, in contrast to the baptismal fire that characterizes Ju Dou, for instance. Wu Ying, like Zhang’s other female protagonists, is a rich and fascinating character that adds new dimensions of depth and diversity to the common conceptions of Chinese femininity. Additionally, like Zhang’s other characters, she is an ordinary person who is extraordinary. Zhang Yimou 7

Ordinary People

In many ways it seems altogether logical that Zhang Yimou would focus almost exclusively on ordinary people in his films, as he produces films in a supposedly classless society; a society where filmmakers cannot help but react to or reinforce the communist politics that have directed China’s development. Fifth Generation directors like Zhang focused “on the structure of a society (that) (resisted) change” and were haunted by “the tyranny of (China’s) feudal past and an apparently spiritless commodity‐orientated future.”14 This focus on society as a collective paradoxically leads to a focus on individuals in Zhang’s films.

Indeed, his characters might often be described as westernized because of their individuality in the midst of a collectivist culture. Intercultural communication scholars assert that members of collectivist societies tend to “think of themselves as interdependent within their groups, … give more priority to the goals of their in‐group than to their personal goals, … use in‐group norms to shape their behavior more than personal attitudes, … (and) conceive of social relationships as communal.”15

Zhang’s focus on ordinary people serves a synecdochal function, as the individual comes to stand for the collective. In Red Sorghum, Luohan’s flaying is illustrative of the collective persecution of the Chinese by the Japanese. In Ju Dou, the protagonist’s sufferings at the hand of her husband – if they are to be understood to function allegorically – may be interpreted as a representation of the people’s suffering at the hand’s of Mao’s government. In Raise the Red Lantern, Songlian’s oppression may be seen similarly. All of these films tap into the collective conscious of China through the lives of the ordinary individuals that comprise the collective.

The protagonists in Zhang’s new trilogy function similarly. However, where the characters that populated his earlier works seem to be borne of political turmoil, the characters in The Road Home, Not One Less, and Happy Times seem to come from an altogether different place. As China has become increasingly capitalistic and moved away from practical communism, it seems that Zhang Yimou’s works have been fueled less and less by political factors. Certainly, Di and Yusheng’s love story in The Road Home is unique because it represents a break with tradition, but this break is not met with the stoic resistance or harsh retribution that can be found in Zhang’s earlier work. Instead, this deviation is initially discouraged but ultimately embraced. Whether or not this should be understood as representative of progress in Chinese society is purely speculative. However, it certainly could be seen this way. Could it be that some great glacial shelf has broken off – thawed, and slid into the sea – in China’s collective consciousness? If Zhang’s new trilogy is any indication, the new China is cautious, but more open.

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Even more interesting is the fact that Wei Minzhe turns to the media to help her find Zhang Huike in Not One Less. The newscast she appears on is decidedly westernized, featuring an attractive female news anchor dressed in professional broadcasting attire. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that Minzhe travels from the village to the city, only to find herself relying on communication media that have been instrumental in the creation of the “global village.” If her character is to be understood synecdochally, it may be that Zhang is commenting on the way China is reevaluating its relationship to the rest of the world. Indeed, the China depicted in Not One Less is one that is more open. It is a China where the ordinary person is able to belong to the village and to the global village as well.

Differences in Dramatic Tone

While Zhang Yimou has continually relied on female protagonists and individuals to represent the collective, the point of greatest departure for him in his oeuvre is the dramatic tone that characterizes The Road Home, Not One Less, and Happy Times. These films simply feel different than his other works.

Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, and Raise the Red Lantern are resigned to tragedy, aflame with the sort of passion that is tempered by the knowledge that extinguishment is inevitable. Though these films explore the sort of dark, bleak terrain that commonly accompanies tragic themes, Zhang maintains a certain distance from his subject matter, and the result is a sense that the tragedies depicted in the films are, in some sense, matter‐of‐ fact. These are not the sorts of tragedies that prompt an audience to tears. They are paradoxically fiery and icy, passionate and emotionally withdrawn, as if the Chinese fatalism that informed their development made the films’ tragic overtones seem inevitable and, therefore, the sense of loss is lessened.

The dramatic tone of the The Road Home, Not One Less, and Happy Times is completely different. There is a sort of sweetness that is saccharine at times without being sickeningly so. At the end of The Road Home, for example, when the viewer realizes the significance of the road, it prompts an emotional welling that results in tears. These films truly feel as though they were made on a totally different planet, emotionally speaking, than their predecessors. To the viewer, this observation is obvious. To the student of Zhang Yimou, however, it is an observation of a director who has evolved with time, reinventing himself repeatedly.

Conclusion

Since creating the trilogy that is the subject of this essay, Zhang has reinvented himself yet again, delving into the wuxia genre that first came to international prominence through Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Zhang’s three wuxia films – Hero (2002), (2004), and Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) – find him returning to the poetry of images that defined his earlier work. However, Zhang Yimou 9 unlike his earlier work, these films emphasize the filmic image so much that, at times, the narrative is neglected, the content completely obscured by the spectacle of the image. On the other hand, as Roger Ebert notes when writing about House of Flying Daggers, “The film is so good to look at and listen to that, as with some operas, the story is almost beside the point, serving primarily to get us from one spectacular scene to another.”16

Still, Zhang is a storyteller at heart. In the midst of his foray in the wuxia genre, he directed a small‐scale, altogether quiet film called Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005). It is unique among his work because it features a Japanese protagonist who ventures into the Chinese world, but it is also unique because it stands in stark contrast with the films its follows and precedes in Zhang’s body of work. It is as if Zhang Yimou could not help but momentarily avert his eyes from his swordsman epics for a moment to revel in the quieter glories of everyday human stories once again.

1 Desson Howe, “Red Sorghum,” Washington Post, October 21, 1988, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/ redsorghumnrhowe_a0b1d0.htm (accessed April 28, 2007). 2 Sheila Cornelius and Ian Haydn Smith, New Chinese Cinema: Challenging Representations. (London: Wallflower Press, 2002), 45. 3 Ibid. 4 I have seen this film without subtitles and, unlike his more recent work, it does not revolve exclusively around imagery. It is dialogue‐heavy and is therefore indecipherable unless the viewer happens to be fluent in either Mandarin or Cantonese. 5 Michael Wilmington, “The Road Home,” Chicago Tribute, October 22, 2001, http://www.newyorkerfilms.com/nyf/n_elements/road_fl.pdf (accessed May 5, 2007). 6 Frances Gateward, ed. Zhang Yimou interviews (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2001), 148. 7 Ibid, 128. 8 Ibid, 130. 9 “Chapter 4,” Not One Less, DVD, directed by Zhang Yimou (1999; New York, NY: Columbia Tri‐Star, 1999). 10 The Life Application Bible: New International Version. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1991), 1836‐1837. 11 Ibid., 1837. 12 “The Happy Times Hut Plan,” Happy Times, DVD, directed by Zhang Yimou (2000; Culver City, CA: Classics, 2000). 13 Desson Howe, “The Road Home,” Washington Post, June 8, 2001, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp‐srv/entertainment/movies/reviews/roadhomehowe.htm (accessed May 5, 2007). 14 Sheila Cornelius and Ian Haydn Smith, New Chinese Cinema, 37. 15 Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, and Edwin R. McDaniel, Intercultural communication: A reader. (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006), 23. 16 Roger Ebert, “House of Flying Daggers,” Chicago Sun‐Times, December 17, 2004, http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041216/REVIEWS/41201003 (accessed April 29, 2007).