An open letter to the Chinese film industry

Dear sirs and madams,

I write to you as an avid fan of your country’s unique and distinguished moviemaking tradition. The films of Chinese luminaries such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige and Wong Kar Wai have indelibly seared themselves onto my consciousness. I am overcome with emotion from simply recalling the lush colours and sensuous textures that permeate the finest offerings of Chinese cinema. I also really dig Chinese chicks.

But lately I have become somewhat vexed with the repetitiveness of Chinese films, specifically those of the wuxia and epic historical genres. A casual glance over the stock of my local bootleg Asian DVD shop reveals a glut of swords, spears, armour, banners, period costume and Donnie Yen’s consistently stone-faced mug sporting varying lengths of facial hair.

New broadsword, same as the old broadsword

Of course, you may have your reasons for cranking out such a prodigious amount of historical films. Perhaps they provide gainful employment for the millions of rural migrants who make up the on-screen armies. Perhaps the Communist Party imposes quotas for such films. Perhaps they are the only kind of films Donnie Yen is prepared to act in for just a six-pack of Tsingtao and a pat on the bum.

Clearly your glorious country has no shortage of manpower, talent and cash to throw at insipid, unoriginal, invariably chopsocky sword-and-silk productions. But what about science-fiction movies? There is a noticeable dearth of visionary sci-fi filmmakers amongst your countrymen. Where is your Stanley Kubrick? Your James Cameron? Your Ridley Scott? Your Mamoru Oshii? By the way, if you do find yourselves a Chinese George Lucas, let him make one sci-fi trilogy. Then shoot him.

Science-fiction is a genre that remains largely untapped by the Chinese film industry. Think of what Chinese cinema could accomplish in this field by transplanting the visual bravura and poetic action of martial arts and epic historical films onto a galactic space-opera far, far away, or a dystopian future Earth, or a virtual reality.

There is much promise in Chinese-made sci-fi films. But for the love of Mao, could you please pick someone other than Donnie Yen to star in them? I don’t care how good he looks jackhammering android alien bugs with his fists, or how balletic his flying kicks are in zero G. The guy is like in 11 out of 10 historical movies your studios churn out. His output defies the laws of space-time.

I look forward to a new era in Chinese cinema that embraces the potential of science-fiction to tell intelligent, compelling, exciting stories that make us imagine what could be, not just what has been. Chinese sci-fi could address issues of universal concern, but with a distinctive vernacular of its own that looks to the future, not the past.

Meanwhile we wait for a Chinese Metropolis.


Yours sincerely,

Darrick Lim




25.8.11

Great film duels - Duel Six

Yu Shu Lien vs Jen Yu (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

I know I said that I was only going to post five duels, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to add a feminine touch to an otherwise male-only series of great film fights. This duel between Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi) is from Ang Lee’s 2000 wuxia film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which paved the way for the genre’s eventual popularity in the West. Young, impetuous Jen has stolen the sword called Green Destiny, and Shu Lien demands that she return it, if not willingly then by force. Jen, feeling confident of her skills and knowing that she has a superior weapon, chooses to fight Shu Lien.

Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi both come from a dancing background, which is fitting considering the dance-like aspects of a film fight. We get to see Shu Lien wield a variety of Chinese weapons against the seemingly invincible Green Destiny. One particularly heavy weapon provides a moment of humour during the fight.

Overhead camera shots are used several times to show the sweeping movements of the two opponents. This is an uncommon angle in fight scenes, where the camera tends to face the actors in profile. There’s also not as much wirework here as there is in more extravagant wuxia fights. Most of the action rests on the natural agility of the actors and stunt people. These ladies go as hard and as fast as the boys.

Despite Jen’s arrogance (Shu Lien accuses her of having a significant advantage with the Green Destiny), Shu Lien finally lands a well-placed blow that would have killed Jen if not for Shu Lien’s restraint. The older woman is clearly the better fighter.

With that, this series of posts on great film duels comes to an end. It is by no means a definitive selection, and I’m sure I’ve omitted many worthy candidates, especially unarmed fights. But this was never going to be an exhaustive coverage of movie fights. Hopefully the few examples I chose have demonstrated the aesthetic qualities of a well-executed fight scene. May the artform’s future hold more magnificent duels that equal, even surpass, the best that already exist.




1.6.11

Great film duels - Duel Five

Nameless vs Long Sky (Hero)

Finally we come to a fight scene from a wuxia film. While Chinese films may not be the pioneers of on-screen duels (that honour goes to Hollywood with its silent movie era swashbucklers), the dynamism and exoticism of Chinese martial arts in films have greatly influenced fight choreography – and the perception of martial arts itself – since the golden age of kung fu movies in the 80s and 90s. Bruce Lee and the Shaw brothers kicked things off in the early days of Chinese martial arts cinema. Then Jackie Chan, Tsui Hark, Brigitte Lin and Jet Li took it to the next level during the golden age. The wuxia films of Zhang Yimou and Ang Lee brought the genre into the 21st century, incorporating more sophisticated film-making techniques, special effects, cinematography and of course, fight choreography.

Zhang Yimou’s 2002 film Hero was his first epic wuxia film. This scene takes place early in the story, when an unnamed prefect fights the warrior called Long Sky, who had attempted to assassinate the king of Qin. What makes this duel special is that it pits two martial arts legends, Jet Li (as the nameless swordsman) and Donnie Yen (as Long Sky), against each other. Li and Yen had fought each other before on-screen in Once Upon a Time in China 2, so their duel in Hero was a reunion that pleased the fans.

The gravity-defying wirework ubiquitous in wuxia films is used to dreamy effect here. The elaborate swordplay typical to the genre showcases the amazing skills of Li and Yen, who come from a fading generation of martial-artist actors. The music of a guqin, a type of zither, playing in the background reinforces the Chinese-ness of the scene. No Western-style orchestral score here! The duel is also unique in that it mostly takes place as an imaginary fight mentally pictured by the two opponents – a duel where very little actual fighting happens. I’m going out on a limb here, but perhaps this aspect of the duel is an example of a mystical (and largely Asian) conception of martial arts; you must first defeat your enemy in the mind before you can defeat him in the flesh.




30.5.11

Liberty Ltd, unlimited

Consumerist capitalism and its reliance on markets and markets alone to promote freedom, specifically the consumer’s freedom of choice, ignores certain hard truths about human nature. Libertarian economic philosophy makes grand - and erroneous - assumptions regarding the behaviour of individuals pursuing their rational self-interests; that base emotions like greed and callousness don’t exist (or worse, are trumpeted as good), that private choices don’t have public consequences, that human values are simply the aggregate of personal wants and desires removed from a wider social context. We are free to choose from five-hundred-and-seventy-three brands of washing detergent but are blocked from buying television air-time for civic messages criticizing consumerism. The contradictory message is clear: we are free to spend our money as we see fit, so long as we spend it as consumerist capitalism sees fit. We can subscribe to any social ideology we want to, so long as it's consumerism.

Capitalism: a convenient scapegoat

In his book Supercapitalism, a critique on the adverse effects of turbo-charged capitalism in tandem with a weakened democracy, economist Robert Reich writes:

Capitalism's role is to enlarge the economic pie. How the slices are divided and whether they are applied to private goods like personal computers or public goods like clean air is up to society to decide. This is the role we assign to democracy.

This is in response to the common accusation of capitalism being the fountainhead of all sorts of social and environmental ills, from widening inequalities of income and wealth to greater job insecurity to climate change. This simplistic view is inaccurate and lays far too many sins at the feet of what is essentially a neutral tool of material and social progress.

Cultural relativism of values

It's deplorable, the reluctance to acknowledge the objective value of an idea simply because the idea originated in a culture other than one's own. I have in mind the Chinese government's claims that principles such as freedom of thought and speech, individual rights and various expressions of liberty (especially with regard to information access, the press and journalistic integrity) are irrelevant to the Chinese people simply on the grounds of their alien, Western origins. By implying that such values are 'culture specific' and 'relative' to a particular society or milieu, the Chinese leaders seek to undermine the very natural, objective, human inclinations of the Chinese people towards liberty and the sovereignty of the individual in matters pertaining to his own life and happiness, bearing the 'do no harm to others' qualification.

This 'culturalist' attitude is narrow-minded and betrays the vanity of those demonstrating it. Imagine if, upon their discovery, a non-Chinese were to refute the value of paper or the magnetic compass simply because such things were born of the ingenuity of the Chinese (therefore alien to the non-Chinese) mind. To take such a culturalist stance shows a blinkered view of ideas that contribute to the good and add to the marvelous storehouse of human knowledge and experience.

The value and social relevance of any idea should be deduced from its utility and consequences, independently of its culture of origin. All ideas spring from a human mind, and should be accounted good or bad based on the idea's effect on the human condition.




15.6.08