She has the face of Buddha and the heart of a scorpion ✵ Raise the Red Lantern - ANGELS AND MONSTERS ✵ 1975–1991 - The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained) (2016)

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IN CONTEXT

GENRE

Historical drama

DIRECTOR

Zhang Yimou

WRITERS

Ni Zhen (screenplay); Su Tong (novel)

STARS

Gong Li, He Saifei, Cao Cuifen, Jingwu Ma

BEFORE

1984 Zhang Yimou is the cinematographer for Chen Kaige’s historical drama Yellow Earth.

1987 Red Sorghum, Zhang’s debut, wins the top prize at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival.

1990 Zhang’s rural drama Ju Dou is China’s first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

AFTER

2002 Zhang’s wuxia martial arts epic, Hero, is a global hit.

With its portrayal of the traditional formalities of the past, Raise the Red Lantern initially seems more archaic than it really is: it is set in the 1920s, in the warlord era before China’s Civil War of 1927. Songlian (Gong Li) is a penniless teenage girl who becomes the fourth concubine of Master Chen. Rivals, the four women live in an uneasy truce, but Songlian soon learns that she is the target of a secret conspiracy.

Although the movie was initially seen by its critics as a tourist-board version of Chinese history and by its admirers as a feminist parable, director Zhang Yimou insists it was neither. His use of the color red is perhaps best seen as a metaphor for the constraining effects of Chinese Communism after the crackdown that followed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Fading hopes

Betrayed by her rivals and a jealous maid, Songlian goes mad. She swaps her elaborate robes for her white school blouse, oblivious to the red lanterns that are lit to show whom the master chooses each night.

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The red lanterns symbolize each concubine’s desperate hope that the Master will favor her over the others.

What else to watch: One and Eight (1983) ✵ Yellow Earth (1984) ✵ The Old Well (1986) ✵ Red Sorghum (1987) ✵ Ju Dou (1990)