[KFCC] Farewell My Concubine Review

Story: ‘Farewell my Concubine’ is based on a novel of the same name by Lilian Lee. Duan Xiao-lou and Cheng Die-yi are the fellow apprentices of a Peking Opera troupe. They grew up together. And they become the opera stars by performing their famous renditions of the opera ‘Ba Wang Bie Ji’ (Farewell My Concubine), with Xiao-lou in the role of the King and Die-yi playing the Concubine. They believed they would perform this opera together for the rest of their lives.

During the War of Resistance against Japan, Xiao-lou marries Ju-xian, a local prostitute. This makes Die-yi feel very lonely because he has always felt that his soul is attached to Xiao-lou, so he decides not to perform in the opera with him any more. Long after, the political liberation comes; Die-yi and Xiao-lou decide to perform together on the stage again. However, the Great Cultural Revolution soon begins and they both fall into a state of terrible havoc. The revolution broke their performance again. After some hard days, the revolution is over and they play this opera again. Their performance ends this brilliant tragedy.

Review: If you know nothing about Chinese Culture, this movie might be a hard one for you to understand. The story covers a long period (1925-1977) and the plots are intensively connected with the history. Also, the complicated plots and composite characters add many elements for us to consider. In my opinion, we can learn something from this movie: the great internal spirit of Chinese culture and the attitude of the roles in this movie, they treated the art as their most gracious things and used all their lives to realize it.

Farewell My Concubine is Chen Kai-ge’s fifth movie, and a turning point which helped him get the highest prize at the 46th Cannes Film Festival in 1993. It’s very particular for him to choose Peking opera, an essential part of Chinese culture, to show his thinking on conventional culture and human nature. The several opera parts in the movie were specially chosen to explain the changing relationships between the three main characters. Of course, these operatic parts are also very glamorous elements to portray the character of Die-yi.

If you believe that someone can play the character of Die-yi better than Leslie Cheung did, then you would be wrong. Die-yi is such a confused person: he sees opera as life and life as opera. His sentiments are much more like an attachment of Xiao-lou, and his happiness is tensely connected with Xiao-Lou. The friendship between them means more to Die-yi. However, he has no choice but to face the reality that Ju-xian takes Xiao-lou away from him. Only loneliness stays with Die-yi. From his smile, the wandering expression in his eyes, you can feel it. This sentiment is also a habit on spirit; it’s unreal, but the chestiest, the most awed. Leslie Cheung uses his perfect performance to make this complicate person came to life.

This movie wants to show a hard time in Chinese history, but the makers didn’t go too deep into it, maybe because of the lengthy time span. As in the Great Cultural Revolution part, it seems that they wanted to emphasize the dark side of Chinese history, but this caused the movie to break away from the characters they have created. The nature of the character in this part changes very suddenly, maybe because of the unbearable pressures made by the Culture revolution. If the director could reflect this period more clearly, then the movie would have become much easier for the audience to understand.

‘A smile ushers in the spring; a tear does darken the entire world. How truly does this benefit you, only you are possessed of such charm!’ These famous words from the movie are how Master Yuan describes Die-yi. But for me, it’s not only for the character; it’s also for the actor, Leslie Cheung.

Farewell, our concubine!