IRON AND SILK
A film review by Wayne Citrin
Copyright 1991 Wayne Citrin
I was very much looking forward to this filmed version of Mark Salzman's book on his experiences as an English teacher in China. I must admit that I've never read the book (although a friend of mine who had was enthusiastic about it), but I did once see him read from the book in person at the Black Oak Bookstore in Berkeley (where he also did some of his kung fu routines), and I knew a woman who knew Salzman and had been in China on the same Yale program as Salzman and was a witness to some of the events described in the book (although she, and Salzman's other American colleagues, had generally been written out of the book and the film). Salzman, who is an engaging personality in person, insisted on starring as himself in the film version (he also seems to be something of a self-promoter), and I was curious to see what he would do with it.
The result, in my brother's words (he also saw the film), was "insipid." Salzman comes off engagingly. Some of the reviews called him a bad actor, but I think he was just fine. The problem is in the story. There's no conflict, no tension. (At least, none that seems to matter.) There's no sense of any real failures that he experiences, no feeling for the difficulties he must have had teaching English to a class of middle-aged Chinese teachers who had been told to forget their Russian and learn English, not even any feeling for the efforts he must have gone through to become the kung fu expert that he became (although he must have worked very hard). We have no idea of how, or even whether, Salzman has grown at all over his two years in China. He comes into the country fully well-adjusted, and we never feel that he ever had occasion to call any of his beliefs into question.
What's good about the film? Well, Salzman himself isn't bad, and the man who plays the head Chinese teacher is a rather interesting and ambiguous characher of whom I would have liked to see more. Salzman's kung fu teacher, who was also his kung fu teacher in real life (he plays himself), has a fun part, although he's played as a crusty guy with a heart of gold - it would have been interesting to get into his head a little more. The kung fu practice scenes are interleaved with scenes from the old kung fu movies that Salzman thrived on as a kid; it's a witty touch. The photography is also good, and there's one sequence where Salzman visits a boat-dwelling family that's breathtaking. I wish there were more scenes like that in the film.
In all, a better than average film, but not much more than that.
Two-and-a-half stars (out of four). --
Wayne Citrin citrin@soglio.colorado.edu citrin@boulder.colorado.edu
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