country with the world’s largest population, is
ostensibly Communist. Taiwan, an island off the
southern coast of China, has a democratic govern-
ment that desires independence even in the face of
mainland China’s threats of reunification. And
Hong Kong, a small island near China’s south coast,
is, by terms of the treaty by which it reunified with
the People’s Republic, a limited democracy with
considerable sovereignty compared to the other
regions of China. The tripartite Chinese film indus-
try is thus clearly affected by these circumstances
of history, ideology, and geography.
The People’s Republic Postwar government-
subsidized filmmaking here has reflected the shift-
ing ideological climate that developed after the
1949 Communist Revolution. Since 1976—with the
death of Party Chairman Mao Ze-dong and Pre-
mier Zhou Enlai—filmmakers have focused less on
party doctrines and become more concerned with
individuals, and the Chinese film industry has
become more oriented to the Western market. The
most important directors are Chen Kaige, Yimou
Zhang, and Tian Zhuangzhuang, each of whom has
managed, within a repressive society, to make films
about traditionally taboo subjects. Among their
best-known movies are Chen’s Farewell My Concu-
bine(1993), about an extramarital love triangle;
Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern(1991), which, among
other subjects, is concerned with the struggle for
women’s rights; and Tian’s The Horse Thief(1986), a
brilliant study of China’s ethnic minorities.
But the Chinese movies that are most popular
and influential outside China—the action movies
inspired by various martial arts—are produced in
Hong Kong and, to a lesser extent, Taiwan.Hong Kong The Hong Kong martial-arts action
movies stem from a venerable tradition in Chinese
film history that, through the 1920s to the 1970s,
shifted between two basic styles: wuxia (or wushu)
and kung fu, both of which combine, to varying468 CHAPTER 10FILM HISTORY
Unique camera placement in Ozu’s Tokyo StorySet
in postwar Japan, this unforgettable movie tells a familiar
and touching story about Shukichi (Chishu Ryu, left) and
Tomi Hirayama (Chieko Higashiyama, middle), two elderly
parents who visit their children in Tokyo only to find that
they are in the way. However, Noriko (Setsuko Hara, right),
the couple’s widowed daughter-in-law, who is less busy,
cheerfully takes charge of entertaining them. In this image,
their first meeting, the three are traditionally seated on the
floor, where the low placement of Ozu’s static camera (behind
and to the left ofNoriko) provides us with Noriko’s
perspective. The image, with its deep-space composition,
permits us to see the rooms behind this group. While it’s a
simple story, and Ozu observes it with calm detachment, its
ending reminds us of the oneness of humanity, helping to
make it an international success.
Farewell My Concubine: sex and politicsThe Beijing
Opera, one of China’s major cultural treasures, forms the
backdrop for two major contemporary Chinese movies,
including Hark Tsui’s Peking Opera Blues(1986). Chen Kaige’s
Farewell My Concubine(1993) tells the lengthy, complicated
story of two of the opera’s male actors, whose happiness
together onstage and off is threatened by a prostitute. The
turbulence of this personal story is mirrored by the political
upheavals of the period from the 1920s to Mao’s Cultural
Revolution, and the movie was banned in China, not because of
its treatment of politics, but because of its homosexual subject
matter. The Beijing Opera is known for its lavish productions,
exotic costumes, and stylized makeup as well as for its ancient
tradition of using males to play the female roles.