SHOWER (XIZAO) (director/editor: Zhang Yang; screenwriters: Liu Fen Dou/Mr. Zhang/Huo Xin/ Diao Yi Nan/Cai Xiang Jun; cinematographer: Zhang Jian; editor: Yang Hong Yu; cast: Zhu Xu (Master Liu), Pu Cun Xin (Da Ming), Jiang Wu (Er Ming), He Zheng (He Bing), Zhang Jin Hao (Bei Bei), Lao Lin (Li Ding), Lao Wu (Feng Shun); Runtime: 92; Sony Pictures Classics; 1999-China)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Zhang Yang's bittersweet dramatic comedy, "Shower," is meant to be a crowd pleaser. Its manipulative and sugary story is set in modern Beijing. When Da Ming (Pu Cun Xin) received a postcard from his retarded younger brother Er Ming (Jiang Wu) of a picture of his elderly father lying on his bed, he assumed that his father passed away and decided to leave his business duties in southern China's region of Shenzhen to see for himself. Why he didn't phone is a mystery to me, since he doesn't seem to go anywhere without his cell phone. The only reason I can think of him making the journey home, is that since he had no contact with his father, Master Li (Zhu Xu), for a long period of time, maybe he thought he would use this as an excuse to see how everything is going at home.
Before he visits his father, he takes an ultra-modern shower, one which squirts water at him from all directions, like in a car wash. When he enters his father's bathhouse, he enters an old-fashioned world, one in which he doesn't care for. When he's spotted, he's warmly greeted by Er Ming. But his father greets him apprehensively, wondering why he came. Master Li has run a popular bathhouse in the old part of town for a longtime and Er Ming is happy being his assistant, happiest when greeting the customers at the front desk. Da Ming could never see himself fitting into this lifestyle and left his widowed father to achieve material success and a new life far away from him. When he takes a long look at the place he can't forget, all those memories come flashing back to him, and he decides to stay for the evening and return to his wife the next day. The conversation between the two is guarded, as the only penetrating question the father asks is, Are the noodles as good in the south?
For Master Li, the place is not just a bathhouse where his customers get a massage and a shave, and sit in the warm steam bath pools slowly passing the time conversing and laughing, getting things off their chest while they are in a relaxed state of mind, but is a magical place where the old man knows he's really good at what he does and feels proud that he could serve his community in this manner. It is his whole life. He also has a great love for Er Ming, taking special care of the childlike adult and playing childish games with him, like racing around the block and having matches to see who can hold his breath the longest underwater, while Er Ming reciprocates this love like a dog does to his master.
The steambath customers are a varied lot of mostly lovable characters, ranging from the elderly to an overweight teenage boy who wants to sing "O Sole Mio" at a neighborhood cultural event, but freezes in public and can only sing in the shower. There is a man who raises crickets and arranges for bets on cricket fights at the bathhouse. Another man has big business plans but none of them turn out right, as creditors come into the bathhouse to collect from him. One of Master Li's better customers is having problems staying home as his irate wife is beating and nagging him, and in a moment of complete trust he tells the Master it is because I have become impotent. Master Li has time to listen to all these problems and give them his proper attention, as he is everything to his customers, from physical therapist-to sexual therapist-to sage.
The film's more serious message, is of the family's estranged relationship.The story also looks into the family's roots in northern China, seen through flashbacks the father has, where water was scarce and was viewed as the most precious resource there is, a healer of all life's ills. The film also questions the modern world and its constant strivings for progress, which result in ripping up traditional neighborhoods and families.
As tragedy suddenly hits home for the serious-minded son, he is now viewed as someone who in his short stay has begun to absorb his father's kindly wisdom for the first time and recognizes the need for a family to be held together by love. There is a real change that has happened to him inside, as he begins to look at what values things really have instead of looking at things only as a materialist.
Director Zhang Yang has created a graceful, masculine film (all the main characters are male and the story is told from their view), avoiding for the most part the sentimentality that could have sunk the film, if handled by a lesser director.
This mainstream, middle-brow, foreign film was the winner of audience awards at festivals at Rotterdam and all over Europe and Asia, which means it clicked with varous audiences because of its universal appeal. Though, I thought, to make his point about the old and new China, he pulled out too many old contrived tricks out of the hat, from the bathhouse being torn down and replaced by a shopping mall, to a retarded brother stealing the film with his comical and good-natured appeal. Yet what I found to be outright fascinating, was the strong relationship between the wonderfully benevolent Zhu Xu (The King of Masks), an actor who has a certain magical screen presence, and the gifted actor who played his retarded son, Jiang Wu, and the equally gifted actor Pu Cun Xin who as the older son, was used by the director to signify how well the transition was going in China from the old to the new. But what interested me most about Shower, is that it gave me a chance to observe everyday life in a country that has been closed to the West, and the film has done it in a most endearing way. Other than that, I still found the story too sweet for my taste.
REVIEWED ON 2/26/2001 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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