武侠片代表中国现代电影吗？

ELLEN SANDER（United States）

Contemporary Chinese wuxia epics are enjoying immense popularity in America. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon opened the door, Hero marched through it triumphantly and director Zhang Yimou has modestly expressed nervousness about the high expectations for House of Flying Daggers to do even better. Yet, some Chinese think these are not representative enough of modern Chinese films even as some American critics misunderstand what is so very Chinese about them.

近年来，规模宏大的中国武侠片在美国等西方国家受到格外的欢迎。《卧虎藏龙》是打吸响西方电影市场的头一炮。随后《英雄》又在商业上获得了成功，该片导演张艺谋就他的另一部武侠力作《十面埋伏》能否满足人们对它的巨大期望表示担心。尽管美国的影评人认为这些电影充满了中国味儿，不少中国人却不认为它们是中国现代电影的代表。

In August 2004, two years after its monumentally successful release in China, Miramax Films announced that the American opening of the action packed martial arts epic Hero (Ying Xiong) grossed over US $18 million in North America. It was the highest August opening ever and the second largest weekend opening ever for a foreign language film. On its second weekend, over the four-day American Labor Day holiday (which is always on the first Monday in September), it earned US $11.5 million more than any America film for that weekend. Not only did the critically acclaimed and extravagantly beautiful Hero earn a record dollar figure, but it also won the hearts of American critics and moviegoers alike, further extending the charisma of major Chinese films into the American mainstream.

The first recent Chinese film that burst into the American mainstream market was the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo Hu Cang Long), which, released in America in 2000, became the highest-grossing foreign language film in American history. Four years later, director Zhang Yimou"s Hero opened to critical acclaim. In December 2004, his House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu) opened in New York and won praise from critics and robust initial attendance. In February 2005, it received an Oscar nomination for cinematography. All three are in the “wuxia” (meaning martial arts chivalry) tradition of Chinese film, a well established literary and film gee in China.

The popularity of these major Chinese movies in America and Europe in recent years signifies more than just a financial windfall to the Chinese entertainment industry. The mainstream popularity of these Chinese movies is a cultural milestone in Sino-western relations, more powerful than politics, international relations or economic development. Art is the most resonant means of communication, as it reaches from the heart of one people to another, doing an end run around history, politics and entrenched preconceptions.

Dollars and recognition speak loudly in these miracle years of China’s economic development. But while these films are accumulating money and awards, they are also collecting controversy. Either you love them or you hate them. The raves were widespread but by no means unanimous, and some disapproving responses to these films revealed both the Chinese and foreign cultural biases of critics and ordinary moviegoers.

Chinese Objections

来自中国的反对声

Although, in it’s time, Hero was the biggest grossing film in China, and ardent Chinese fans have watched it multiple times, some Chinese, especially university students, feel the story of the Emperor of Qin and the historic unification of China should have been more authentically represented. I heard that some Chinese moviegoers coming out of a Beijing movie theatre, having just watched House of Flying Daggers (which has yet to prove itself as a long term box office hit in America), said it was a waste of their money and that they felt alienated because they thought it was too obviously created for foreign tastes. To this Zhang Yimou says, “To be honest, I don’t know anything about the Western market—although Chinese people have always criticized me for making films for foreigners, which is puzzling, as I don’t even speak English!”

Kung fu films have been popular in America for a long time, but with a limited audience.Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon (1973) crossed over from a niche market to the mainstream, but perhaps because of his untimely death or because films that followed it were not as good, the mainstream popularity of kung fu films was short lived, although Jackie Chan and other martial arts movies are still very popular with “fight film” fans. Now that Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou have elevated the gee, we should think of wuxia epics as modern cross cultural emissaries, even though they are stories with historical settings.

Cross Cultural Puzzlement Can Turn Ignorance into Curiosity

文化差异——把不了解变成好奇

It’s a completely fair point that the foreign audience may not fully appreciate the implications of Chinese historical culture and mythology from these films because the presentation is so spectacular. However, if western moviegoers enjoy these films anyway, for the cinematic virtuosity, exotic stories and bold display of talent that they do understand, it creates an openness and eagerness to see and understand more. A Chinese author of a reader-review of Hero in the New York Times says it much better than I can:

“Every Chinese person knows the ending of this movie, but for those that are not Chinese, I feel the ending would give you a more honorable impression about the culture of China than you already have.”

Foreign moviegoers have erupted in cheers and applause in the theatres over the thrilling special effects and martial arts choreography in these opulent, epic wuxia films. But some American film critics and moviegoers, unfamiliar with the literary and film gee of wuxia, wrote that the powerful intertwined dramas of politics, love, loyalty, ethics, revenge and betrayal in Hero and House of Flying Daggers might have been better off without the distraction of such elaborate martial arts scenes. If only the publicity for the movies had included the following background, such a misunderstanding could have been avoided:

Chinese wuxia films grew from the literary tradition and include fantasy films with flying swordsmen. They trace their lineage back to the first wuxia film, The Burning of Red Lotus Monastery filmed in 1928 which was based on The Legend of the Strange Hero by Xiang Kairen. This film, and its sequels, were the prototype of the wuxia fantasy gee. In it were all the elements of modern wuxia fantasy films, including special effects to simulate palm power and the use of wire-work to simulate flying. When these films were produced in the 1950s, they took stylistic elements and conventions from traditional Chinese opera. By the mid-60s, a synthesis with the new literature movement changed the one dimensional noble warrior of earlier films to a more complex character with human flaws, and produced the wuxia film as we know it today. Hu Jinquan introduced a style of imagery and beauty that appeals to our senses. Most however, are most familiar with the fantasies of Xu Ke, who captures our imagination, and the choreography of Yuan Huo-Pin that makes the pulse race with excitement.1

The Directors and the Women of Wuxia

武侠片导演及女演员

In an interview about House of Flying Daggers, Zhang Yimou alluded to the most crucial national characteristic that Americans do not understand about Chinese: “For thousands of years, there’s been a tradition of teaching us in China to think in terms of the collective experience, so we are rarely able to act in accordance with personal desires or emotions. Now young people, especially under Western influences, have become much more interested in themselves and their own values.”

In another interview, he said: “House of Flying Daggers is much more like a modern romantic story, in which the characters sacrifice everything for love. Even though we wrote both films at the time, House of Flying Daggers is, thematically, the opposite of Hero, as the characters in Hero sacrifice love for their ideals. It is very rare that a heroine in a traditional Chinese martial arts movie would give up everything for her love. It used to be that she has to give up her love for the collective well-being.”

Audiences adore the women of wuxia. Women are essential to the tradition of wuxia and the actresses in these movies, among them Cheng Pei Pei, known as the queen of wuxia movies; Brigitte Lin; Maggie Cheung; Michelle Yeoh and, Zhang Ziyi are as stunning in their battle technique as they are beautiful. They add fierceness to the concept of feminine beauty and virtue, which intrigues the western notion of liberated women warriors.

Ang Lee, director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, commented in an interview, “Women do a lot of the things men do in this gee. They embrace the Tao, they take the duels. The women are gutsy and they make decisions, one way or another.”

American education about China is sorely lacking in depth. Chinese people get a great deal of their familiarity with and understanding about the west from media, primarily thousands of American and other western films, which are viewed on DVD by hundreds of millions of Chinese.China was closed to the west for so long while it developed such a deep and unique culture. The west sees so little of Chinese culture, because so little of it is exported. China is so old and America is so young. There is an enormous cultural gap between the two cultures with many valid reasons for bewilderment. Governments, business people, media and educational institutions all try to bridge this gap, but film in the end has always been the most successful because a film is a supremely personal experience involving all the senses. I can think of nothing more constructive than the continued success of Chinese movies like these, because they are of such high cinematic quality and have the ability to reach viewers unfamiliar with China and reach them in a meaningful personal way. This can lead the way to the popularity of other kinds of Chinese movies and a more earnest understanding of Chinese life and culture. I have no illusions that this will by itself transform the cultural gap, but it can produce a positive trans-national entertainment experience that will eclipse even economic globalism in its penetration and multilateral good will.

Edited from: /eric/xia.html

Interview quotes from:

http:///1857/2004-12-1/14@174358.htm (a reprint of a New York Times review)