What is Life Really Like?

By TANG YUANKAI

Gong Li's acting in love scenes in Zhou Yu’s Train caused controversy.

AFTER starring in Zhang Yimou's Lifetimes ten years ago, famous Chinese movie stars Ge You and Gong Li again each play leading roles in two movies about life.

Zhou Yu's Train tells of a woman's idealized love object, for which she is willing to sacrifice her individuality. Zhou Yu (Gong Li), meets poet Chen Qing, at a ball. He inflames her passion with his lyricism.

As Chen Qing lives and works far from Zhou Yu's home, she takes a long rail journey to go and see him at weekends. The train thus figures largely in their love affair.

Gong Li and director Sun Zhou met years ago when she was still at middle school, and he was already a famous cinematographer. They worked together in the movie Breaking the Silence, which was a milestone in Gong Li's career.

Zhou Yu's Train, directed by Sun Zhou and starring by Gong Li (first right), was a special 2003 Valentine's Day feature.

In his movie Zhou Yu's Train Sun Zhou expresses his deep love and admiration for women, and looks at life from a woman's standpoint. His woman protagonist cannot break free from the convention that a Chinese woman is merely an accessory to her man. The inner Zhou Yu is not, therefore, in perfect harmony with her liberated facade. She is willing to devote herself totally to Chen Qing despite his failure to fulfill her longing for equality in love. Part of her obsession with him is expressed in her desire to publish his poetry, to the extent that she is willing to pay the printing costs out of her own pocket. She represents the traditional woman who is ready to make any sacrifice for her man.

Sun Zhou's angle on women is evident in the critical attitude he adopts towards the character Chen Qing. He portrays him as a cowardly, unrealistic man undeserving of Zhou Yu's love. The emotion he inspires in Zhou Yu is illusory, as she herself cannot distinguish whether it is the poet or his poetry that most moves her. As time goes by, she realizes how her character has become blurred, and her love a burden.

It is on the train that Zhou Yu gets to know Zhang Qiang the kind of earthy man who knows how to please a woman.

Zhou Yu once more sacrifices her self-respect, as to Zhang Qiang she is just a flirtatious woman. Their affair is based on physical desire rather than spirituality. Zhou Yu's having a lover in no way inhibits Zhang Qiang's carnal pursuit of her, and on eventually tiring of her soulfully romantic lover, she accepts him. In essence, the film tells the archetypal story of a woman becoming the victim of the male dominated society in which she lives.

Ge You gave a superbly moving performance in Cala, My Dog.

The hero of Cala, My Dog is a nonentity. Lao Er, an ordinary worker, has a pet -- a dog named Cala. Not having been licensed the dog is impounded, and if Lao Er wants his pet back, the family must pay a hefty fine.

As the sole aspect of his existence that gives it any meaning, Cala is the only source of happiness in Lao Er's otherwise humdrum life. He feels compelled to get the dog back but in the face of the disproportionate sum he must pay out, vacillates over which is more important, 5,000 yuan or the happiness the dog brings him.

In this film, Lao Er is a character sympathetically portrayed by sixth generation filmmaker Lu Xuechang. In the process of portraying his protagonist's efforts to realize his modest aspiration, Lu interweaves into the main story various side plots revealing the misery and privation of a semi-impoverished, working class family that are geared to arouse the sympathy of viewers similarly placed.

With neither money nor social position, Lao Er has little dignity, even before his wife, yet he overcomes all obstacles in his fight to preserve the dignity he has, of which the dog Cala is its embodiment. Cala's ransom signifies the price of an ordinary person's sense of self worth in the contemporary era.

Chinese movies have a tendency to repeat, or perhaps pay tribute to, certain themes or styles. Cala, My Dog is no exception. It bears a striking similarity to Lu Chuan's The Missing Gun. In both films the protagonist has a wife and a mistress, and the extramarital relationship influences their family life. Also, both men have a communication block with their sons. The main difference between the plot of the two films is that one is centered on a desperate search for a gun, and the other on liberating a dog.

Chinese movies' lack of box office success can be attributed to narrow vision, uninspiring themes, inadequate research into audience psychology, a lack of imagination and creativity, and, of course, a shortage of funds. In the face of fierce international competition, Chinese directors have their work cut out finding a way of developing and advancing the Chinese movie industry.

A number of directors, as represented by Sun Zhou and Lu Xuechang, are making efforts in this direction. In the past few years, Sun Zhou has made his contribution through his experiments in audio-visual language. His new movie also indicates Lu Xuechang's advocacy of a more existential thematic bent. Another aspect worth mentioning concerns what the Chinese censor will allow as regards explicit sex on the cinema screen. Some of the love scenes between Gong and Leung in Zhou Yu's Train stretch the limit in this regard, and could be interpreted as an attempt to titillate the box-office.