You Seng (1993)

reviewed by
Pedro Sena


Reserved.
FILM TITLE:             TEMPTATION OF A MONK
DIRECTOR:               CLARA LAW
COUNTRY:                HONG KONG 1993
MUSIC:                  TALS LIN
CAST:                   Joan Chen, Wu Hsin Kwo, Zhang Fenggi, Michael Lee,
Lisa Lu
SUPER FEATURES:         Nice story with great images.
         !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unlike many films that come out in America, Chinese films ( mainland or otherwise ) have to be careful with their politics and their attitudes towards their opinions.

If they can not come up with a political film that speaks mountains of views, say something like Zhang Yimou's TO LIVE, then they spend their time updating old stories with modern twists.

TEMPTATIONS OF A MONK is this kind of film. It's difficult to decipher, though, if this film is an attack on an old fashioned, ineffective system of politics, or just a simple story of a man, who failed in life and decided to become a monk, and his past keeps trying to show up and get him back to his old life.

Fortunately, in this film, the new attitude, that is, the old past is dead, survives, even if it takes an old man to do it for the younger one, in what is a very ironic twist of fate and story, but a rather satisfying one.

The thought that this film adds to the mix, is that not every old person is stuck on the past. In fact, some elders are also hipper than the younger ones, who have chivalric ideas and lifestyles, where ego and tradition tend to live. Though the old man is stuck on this as well, at least his hermetic style, presumably, adds a more civil understanding of the life any individual ought to take. The old man makes the point that the social scheme ( sort of, anyway ) is a trap for everyone except the person itself.

This is a really good film, given that the exposition of the situation is odd, and perhaps unusual. But we do find that one samurai, failed in his attempt to save his master and as he feels failed he has to leave the place where he lives or he will live forever in shame. He figures that he will add his services somewhere else. However, he finds an isolated space, where an older man lives, and they strike up a friendship. From this point on, the samurai begins tackling his past. And it comes to him in all sort of manners and fashions, until, towards the end, it comes in the form of a sexual encounter with a woman he used to love very much. And it is here that the old man interferes.

One may think of this as inhuman, or not correct, but as an allegory, it is excellent. Just about everything had failed to get the old samurai back, except a woman. And it takes the religious minded person to show the new monk that the social trappings of sex can be maniacal, and downright ugly. The film ends here, in another peaceful outdoor setting, without making any more statements.

Making up your mind, in this film is not easy. Perhaps I see more into it. But it is a nice film, that speaks bundles, and these statements are very subtle. But one thing is for sure. There certainly is more than one voice saying, in China, these days that the past needs to be buried and that a new life is needed. And this may be the under current that undoes the Communist hold in China.

3.5 GIBLOONS

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