GOOD MEN, GOOD WOMEN (HAONAN, HAONU) (director: Hou Hsiao-Hsien; screenwriters: Chu Tien-wen/ Bi-Yu Chiang-novel; cinematographer: Chen Hwai-En; editor: Liao Ching-song; cast: Annie Shizuka Inoh (Chiang Bi-yu/Liang Ching), Chung Hao-tung (Lin Chung), Jack Kao (Ah Wei), Lim Giong (Chung Hao-Tung), Vicky Wei (Liang Ching's Sister), Jieh-Wen King (Ah Hsi), Bo-Chow Lan (Hsiao Dao-Ying), Li-Chin Lu (Mrs. Hslao), Chen-Nan Tsai (Ah Nan); Runtime: 108; Fox Lorber; 1995-Taiwan/Japan)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Hou Hsiao-hsien (A Time to Live and a Time to Die/A City of Sadness/The Puppetmaster) has presented his third part of a loosely drawn history trilogy of China in the 20th-century. It is about the effects of war on some Taiwanese patriots and appears to be inaccessible until it slowly becomes clear what the masterful director is up to. It's a film that intermingles a personal story of a modern Taiwan actress and her past grief and her present fears for the future with a true political event that happened in the 1950s. The story is multi-layered as it uses as its theme the crimes against citizens during the anti-Communist campaign waged during the 1950s, giving it a complexity that requires the viewer to have a resolve to stick with this gloomy tale that is shot with a static camera and takes place in three different time periods (past, present, and in the imagination). The reward is seeing a great bit of filmmaking that comes from the heart.
The story revolves around the real life events of Chiang Bi-yu (Annie Shizuka Inoh), who ventures from Taiwan to the Chinese mainland with her new husband Chung Hao-tung (Lin Chung) during the 1940s to join the anti-Japanese resistance along with three other friends. This is being enacted in a film starring Liang Ching.
Once in China, they are suspected of being Japanese spies and are almost executed but are saved by a government official. When Chiang is with the resistance, she's forced to give up her first-born child. When the war ends, the family returns to mainland China and Chung takes a job as the principal of a school and starts a Marxist newspaper. As the Red Army fought for control of China, Chiang Kai-shek -- supported by the Americans -- rooted out all communists by force. Soon Chung and Chiang are rounded up and interrogated. Chiang is eventually released to her children, while Chung is unceremoniously shot against the wall.
The story is told from the present, of a bar-girl turned actress, Liang Ching, mourning her gangster boyfriend, Ah Wei (Jack Kao), who was killed three years ago. She feels tortured by his memories as she's receiving silent phone calls and faxes of the pages from her stolen diary reminding her of her hedonistic past. She also begins to believe that she's the character she's playing. The movie's title she's in is: Good Men, Good Women.
The film offers much to ponder about the lessons from the past and how rotten both sides can be during war. It's a smoothly accomplished film of a 'film within a film,' as it uses memories that are personal and those that are part of history to show how we can't easily distinguish the two. By the film's conclusion we feel the personal loss of both men who were killed, even though one might have been an innocent victim and the other might have got what he deserved. It was no easy trick to make their deaths be greatly felt by each woman. It's an unusual film that is always challenging and intelligent. Annie Shizuka Inoh in the role of these women from different generations, gives an inspiring performance that evokes a genuine sympathy.
REVIEWED ON 10/10/2001 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
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