Luminaries debate melodrama in film

Subtle exchange calls for a lot of reading between lines

"I was moved to tears when watching the movie ... but I am actually very tolerant of lame movies. Many of them make me weep," Mo Yan, China's Nobel literature laureate, says of Coming Home, the new film by director Zhang Yimou.

A discussion between the two opened a retrospective of Zhang's 30-year film career recently in Beijing. The audience had to read between the lines during the subtle and witty exchange.

The discussion started with Zhang's new film, which was released on May 16 and grossed 200 million yuan ($31.7 million) in a week. Starring Gong Li and Chen Daoming, it traces a professor who returns home after years spent at a labor camp during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), only to find his wife had no recollection of him due to mental trauma in that chaotic decade. The professor's suffering during the political upheaval is hardly mentioned.

Some critics say Zhang turned an epic tale into a melodrama about a middle-aged couple, but others believe reflecting a national disaster via a family tale is a challenging approach that deserves appreciation.

"The story is a cliche," Mo tells the stunned audience, and then says, "but Zhang makes it emotionally powerful."

Zhang was not irritated. "People like melodramas," he says. "Theatrical releases need to be melodramatic, or they will soon be withdrawn from today's Chinese theaters. I try to convey something unique from a melodrama, a story many people have told before, which is very challenging."

Mo compares the film with Red Sorghum, the product of their first collaboration in 1987 and China's first winner of the Berlin Film Festival, which made both of them superstars.

"Red Sorghum is a film with flaws, but its intensity, energy and wildness are not seen in Coming Home," he says. "You can watch Red Sorghum with your legs on the coffee table, but Coming Home shows that still waters run deep."

Red Sorghum was adapted from Mo's novel, set in rural China during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

It was a romantic saga about Chinese farmers. Many filmmakers wanted to adapt the novel. But Zhang, then an ambitious cinematographer preparing his directorial debut, was the one who stood out.

"The passion at that time was so pure, like first love," recalls Zhang. "The making of Red Sorghum is a lifetime experience that cannot be repeated."

The two cooperated again in Zhang's 2002 drama Happy Times. After that, Zhang ushered in an era of so-called Chinese blockbusters by making Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flowers.

These films were the talk of the country, with extravagant settings, costumes and casts, which included almost all Asian superstars, such as Jet Li, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.

Zhang's then producer Zhang Weiping, an established businessman adept at marketing and hype, successfully drew millions of viewers into theaters.

Most of these films, however, were poorly received by critics, despite the box-office triumph.

Coming Home, therefore, has been seen as a return by the 64-year-old director to his best-known genre, realistic drama.

"The name, like a metaphor, embodies my effort to get back to where I started the journey," Zhang says.

Mo agrees.

"Zhang is, indeed, a person who has special talent. He can make films like both Red Sorghum and Hero," Mo says. "But I believe both writers and filmmakers should handle only subjects they are able to."

liuwei@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 05/30/2014 page25)