Translated by C. Custer, editor of ChinaGeeks
Today I went to see Confucius. Before I went into the theater, I stepped out for a moment to make sure of where my seat was, so as not to disturb others after entering. Once I got in, I regretted it. There weren’t even ten people in the theater and you could practically sit wherever you wanted.
In China’s ancient times, there were many “masters”, and although what they say today contradicts what they said in their own times [i.e., people's interpretations of their meanings have changed over time], their meaning comes not from whether they spoke well enough but from whether they said enough things. In any time period, politicians have taken what they needed, [and gotten] both praise and blame. Confucius is one of the most meaningful of these people.
To tell the truth, I never felt there was much need to make movies on historical topics. From the perspective of film, it seems as though from their very birth, movies have been doing something that is very opposite from [the idea of] film: killing imagination. But it’s not necessarily true that China’s big historical epics lack in imagination, because the people who write them often create scenes that are diametrically opposed to actual history, so it’s really a collaborative thing [lack of imagination working together with imagination].
The reason most major Chinese blockbusters are historical epics or focus on historical figures is that the filmmakers and investors don’t feel safe. After investing such a lot of money, they feel completely trusting the screenwriters and directors to create a story is unwise, and if a director is somehow able to make their own investment and use creative freedom, the product is often even worse. All of this has become the tragic history of Chinese big-budget films. As for what Chow Yun-fat [the star of Confucius] said about “if you don’t cry after watching Confucius you’re not human”, I believe it’s a misunderstanding. It must have been at an internal meeting to watch the film that the filmmakers themselves cried. What they’re crying about is how many middle school classes and government offices they’re going to have to drag into theaters en masse to break even.
Confucius actor Chow Yun-fat showing his respect to a descendant of Confucius.
Forgetting about all the political factors and watching the movie just as a film, it is a losing film. What the film is preaching doesn’t leave any influence at all. When Confucius was on the screen talking about “rites” and “benevolence”, some guy to my side was having a ten-minute-long phone conversation. The war scenes in the film are like child’s play. The country of Lu cannot protect itself, but Confucius’s few disciples can drive back the enemy just by building a road block and firing arrows into the sky? Moreover, in the film, the dialogue between characters is not at all persuasive. It’s just like when you were small and your parents told you, “today’s work must be finished today”, but their words ultimately could not convince you. It is no longer an era where a “master” can say a few more lines and attract/trick people. From the movie, I found it very difficult to understand why Confucius’s team of workers continually followed him. In moments when the film was playing up the personalities of the characters, I had to endure ten minutes of the disciples continually yielding a bowl of horsemeat soup [to each other] to demonstrate their cohesiveness. [I had to endure] because I had already endured the story of Confucius’s disciple [of a later generation] Kong Rong giving up pears to his elders throughout my entire childhood.
Ren Quan’s character unexpectedly dies in the end by freezing to death in icy water, which he’s gone into to save a book. This is not moving, it’s stupid. In a situation where the film hasn’t done enough and there’s nothing good about it, the protagonist being extremely satisfied [with the film] is illogical. In a situation where the implicit ideal [which was, in and of itself, unrealistic] has not even been successfully attained, there’s no hope of the movie being realistic. It’s like this: [imagine some] government leaders have been burned, and their secretary rushes in to a sea of fire and saves a copy of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, but when he comes out he sees he’s only taken the first of two volumes, so he rushes back in, then saves another one and comes out, but as soon as he looks, fuck, it’s not two volumes but three, and even though he knows the house will collapse and he won’t be kay, he rushes in again [for the last volume], and the house collapses and he dies. As an audience member, do you think you could cry at this [movie]?
Zhou Xun as Nan Zi in the movie, Confucius.
Zhou Xun [the female lead] is only in the movie because the filmmakers felt a female would help diversify the film. She plays the part of Nan Zi [a historical princess of the Song Kingdom] and spends most of her time flirting with Confucius，but he’s all talk and no ‘action’, which made me nervous. In the end, she didn’t know why she was being shot to death.
I will give Confucius two points. First, because of Chow Yun-fat’s exciting performance in All About Ah Long I will give this movie one point for encouragement. I think if Chow had said “those who don’t cry aren’t people” about Ah long he might have been more correct. Also, because the director is female, I will encourage her with a point. But it must be said, that whether it’s this female director’s Confucius or another female director’s I am Liu Yuejin, their grasp of non-emotional films, especially the more complex/intricate ones, is rather weak. I don’t understand why they don’t make films about love or life [instead], which is what female directors are good at. Zhang Aijia’s Heartbeat or Xu Anhua’s Day and Night in Tianshui are good movies by female directors. Why should women embarrass themselves?
Finally, I want to say that the movie Confucius, whether it is from the perspective of cinematographic meaning, business profits, artistic merit, what it explores, its educational qualities, its historical accuracy, its entertainment value, its emotional resonance, etc., is completely unnecessary. It is a film that could be completely done without.
See orignial article at Han Han's blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0100gqf8.html
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Friday 15 January 2010
Han Han: I am just exploring
From China Hush
Recently I read some Shanghai related news, it is very interesting to connect them together. First, Shanghai’s concrete mixer vehicles drive the city construction in the rate of crushing one person dead each day on average. If this continues, China’s pavilions will be dyed in red with insignificant people’s blood.
Secondly, Politics and Law Committee secretary in Shanghai announced that he is determined to not allow the gangsters to be established in Shanghai. To this I feel rather at ease, because everything is so expensive in Shanghai, not that many gang leaders can afford to support any of their little brothers, Shanghai has already put an end to the creation of gangs from their roots.
Furthermore, the Shanghai municipal government has announced that it will implement the odd and even plates driving restrictions. (In order to solve the traffic problem, this restriction only allows vehicles with odd or even license number plates to drive on the street on every other day) This is learned from the Beijing government. Beijing implemented this odd and even plates driving restriction during the 2008 Olympics, but Beijing’s license plate only cost 200 yuan, and does not have road tolls. In Shanghai, there are plates that cost 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. In addition, gasoline prices in Shanghai are 30 to 70 cents higher than other provinces. After paying the money, not only it doesn’t work, it is so that you can pay more money, how can the gangsters survive here when they actually work after getting the money. By the way, there is the street loan fee of 1,800 to pay, this is very strange, we paid the down payment, and then the loan is also our money, but the profit all goes to you, in the end we just want to touch it, and there is still a time restriction.
Even though this regulation has no effect on me, because I am usually in the country, rarely go to the city. But when the day comes, there will really be a lot of traffic restrictions. I think everyone can only park their cars on the streets and walk home, there is no other way. The government can restrict the number of cars on the street, because of the heavy traffic, but we can’t restrict the officials from working because they are too dumb.
In addition, there are a lot of friends asked me about my feelings on Google leaving China. During the incident of Google scanning Chinese authors’ works, reporter already asked me, Google, without your permission, scanned your book and put it online for other people to read it for free, and said at most will pay you 60 dollars, how I would feel about it. I said, if they really did that, then that explains why they cannot be number one in China’s market shares. When I got home, I finally understood, it turned out Google only scanned the index of my book. Then, I came to understand why Google is not number one in China’s market shares, too many people make troubles for Google. In fact, whether Google is really leaving or fake leaving, I can all understand, the only thing I don’t understand is, on one website’s survey, 70% of the (Chinese) internet users said, they do not support Google’s announcement to the Chinese Government that they will no longer provide censored search results anymore. When reading the survey results from the government official websites, you always feel why I am always at the opposite side of the public opinion, even feel like I am a post 90s generation, why I am always not mainstream. Actually these websites are really in need of screening. I can tolerate calling black gray, calling white beige, but I can never tolerate confounding black and white.
If Google leaves China, the people who feel the most regret are certain writers. Of course, not because Chinese writers represent a social conscience and forces of improvement, they never care about the limited freedom of speech, even if the cultural department filters half of the Chinese characters, they will still have the ability to use the rest of the characters to continue to sing the praises. Their pain is, if they knew you were going to leave, they would not have accepted your 60 dollars, I believe this would be the majority of the Chinese writers’ first income in electronic copyright. They just wanted to have 40 more.
Lastly, I saw a news article said, after your cell phone forwards pornographic message or pornographic information the text messaging feature on your phone will be disabled. You must go to the local police station to write a promise note in order to have the text message feature turned back on. The government is like this. It always gives you a verb and a noun, and then never explains this noun. For example, cannot be anti-revolutionary, but it never tells you what anti-revolution is; cannot be guilty of the crime of perversion, but never tells you what the crime of perversion is; this time cannot forward pornographic message, but never tells you what pornographic message is. First I wanted to follow what the government said, but I had no choice because the government had no standards, causing many friends stepping on some land mines, even some “50 cent parties” often are in the embarrassing situation of wanting to kiss ass but still not passing the screening. My suggestion is, for the minefield, you should label it clearly it’s a minefield; go inside at your own risk. If you don’t label it clearly, and bury some mines on the pedestrian’s walk, and then whose (fault) is it when it blows up? The Chinese new year is here soon, in order to prevent all netizens’ cell phone being shut down while sending text messages, resulting the tragedy of going to the local police station to write promise notes on the new year’s day, I have decided to sacrifice myself. These days, I will continuously send all kinds of pornographic messages, until my cell phone is shut down, then I will tell everyone what pornographic message and pornographic information is. Therefore for those friends who receive my pornographic message or sex text message, please do not misunderstand, I am not horny or flirting, I am just exploring.
See orignial article at Han Han's blog:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0100glm8.html
Recently I read some Shanghai related news, it is very interesting to connect them together. First, Shanghai’s concrete mixer vehicles drive the city construction in the rate of crushing one person dead each day on average. If this continues, China’s pavilions will be dyed in red with insignificant people’s blood.
Secondly, Politics and Law Committee secretary in Shanghai announced that he is determined to not allow the gangsters to be established in Shanghai. To this I feel rather at ease, because everything is so expensive in Shanghai, not that many gang leaders can afford to support any of their little brothers, Shanghai has already put an end to the creation of gangs from their roots.
Furthermore, the Shanghai municipal government has announced that it will implement the odd and even plates driving restrictions. (In order to solve the traffic problem, this restriction only allows vehicles with odd or even license number plates to drive on the street on every other day) This is learned from the Beijing government. Beijing implemented this odd and even plates driving restriction during the 2008 Olympics, but Beijing’s license plate only cost 200 yuan, and does not have road tolls. In Shanghai, there are plates that cost 30,000 to 40,000 yuan. In addition, gasoline prices in Shanghai are 30 to 70 cents higher than other provinces. After paying the money, not only it doesn’t work, it is so that you can pay more money, how can the gangsters survive here when they actually work after getting the money. By the way, there is the street loan fee of 1,800 to pay, this is very strange, we paid the down payment, and then the loan is also our money, but the profit all goes to you, in the end we just want to touch it, and there is still a time restriction.
Even though this regulation has no effect on me, because I am usually in the country, rarely go to the city. But when the day comes, there will really be a lot of traffic restrictions. I think everyone can only park their cars on the streets and walk home, there is no other way. The government can restrict the number of cars on the street, because of the heavy traffic, but we can’t restrict the officials from working because they are too dumb.
In addition, there are a lot of friends asked me about my feelings on Google leaving China. During the incident of Google scanning Chinese authors’ works, reporter already asked me, Google, without your permission, scanned your book and put it online for other people to read it for free, and said at most will pay you 60 dollars, how I would feel about it. I said, if they really did that, then that explains why they cannot be number one in China’s market shares. When I got home, I finally understood, it turned out Google only scanned the index of my book. Then, I came to understand why Google is not number one in China’s market shares, too many people make troubles for Google. In fact, whether Google is really leaving or fake leaving, I can all understand, the only thing I don’t understand is, on one website’s survey, 70% of the (Chinese) internet users said, they do not support Google’s announcement to the Chinese Government that they will no longer provide censored search results anymore. When reading the survey results from the government official websites, you always feel why I am always at the opposite side of the public opinion, even feel like I am a post 90s generation, why I am always not mainstream. Actually these websites are really in need of screening. I can tolerate calling black gray, calling white beige, but I can never tolerate confounding black and white.
If Google leaves China, the people who feel the most regret are certain writers. Of course, not because Chinese writers represent a social conscience and forces of improvement, they never care about the limited freedom of speech, even if the cultural department filters half of the Chinese characters, they will still have the ability to use the rest of the characters to continue to sing the praises. Their pain is, if they knew you were going to leave, they would not have accepted your 60 dollars, I believe this would be the majority of the Chinese writers’ first income in electronic copyright. They just wanted to have 40 more.
Lastly, I saw a news article said, after your cell phone forwards pornographic message or pornographic information the text messaging feature on your phone will be disabled. You must go to the local police station to write a promise note in order to have the text message feature turned back on. The government is like this. It always gives you a verb and a noun, and then never explains this noun. For example, cannot be anti-revolutionary, but it never tells you what anti-revolution is; cannot be guilty of the crime of perversion, but never tells you what the crime of perversion is; this time cannot forward pornographic message, but never tells you what pornographic message is. First I wanted to follow what the government said, but I had no choice because the government had no standards, causing many friends stepping on some land mines, even some “50 cent parties” often are in the embarrassing situation of wanting to kiss ass but still not passing the screening. My suggestion is, for the minefield, you should label it clearly it’s a minefield; go inside at your own risk. If you don’t label it clearly, and bury some mines on the pedestrian’s walk, and then whose (fault) is it when it blows up? The Chinese new year is here soon, in order to prevent all netizens’ cell phone being shut down while sending text messages, resulting the tragedy of going to the local police station to write promise notes on the new year’s day, I have decided to sacrifice myself. These days, I will continuously send all kinds of pornographic messages, until my cell phone is shut down, then I will tell everyone what pornographic message and pornographic information is. Therefore for those friends who receive my pornographic message or sex text message, please do not misunderstand, I am not horny or flirting, I am just exploring.
See orignial article at Han Han's blog:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0100glm8.html
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