SHANGHAI TRIAD
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Zhang Yi-Mou, director of RAISE THE
RED LANTERN, does a gangster film with a unique but
not totally effective style. He mutes the action
and pulls us away from the real action by telling
the story from the point of view of a character
only tangentially connected to the meat of the
story. Many of his traditional themes come through
in spite of his radical change of subject matter.
Rating: +1 (-4 to +4)
The Triads are in Southeast Asia very much what the Cosa Nostra is in the United States, a secret society that runs organized crime. Some historians attribute them to the 17th Century Heaven and Earth Society, augmented by an outgrowth of the Boxers of the 1898-1900 Boxer Rebellion. In the beginning and for much of the intervening time their avowed goal was to return the Ming Dynasty to power in China. It is not likely that they still take that cause seriously, but they still hold a great deal of power in the countries where they operate in places as diverse as Vietnam, the United States, and the Netherlands, though probably not much in their native China, having been to a large extent cleared up in 1949 and 1950 by an equally ruthless Communist government.
However, the title SHANGHAI TRIAD is a play on words. The film is really about a triad of three people involved in the underworld of 1930s Shanghai. At least the English subtitles never explicitly say they are Triads. Suffice it to say one of the characters runs a Shanghai crime syndicate, controlling the trade in opium and prostitution. And that could be part of the Triads.
Shuisheng (played by Wang Xiaoxiao) is a country boy brought to Shanghai by an uncle who is a flunky for Mr. Tang (Li Boatian), the biggest crimelord in Shanghai. Shuisheng's new job is to be a servant for Tang's mistress Xiao Jinbao (Gong Li) a prostitute and a singer in Tang's nightclub. We see the story from Shuisheng's viewpoint from which it is frustratingly difficult to see who it is killing whom and why. It will be more clear by the end of the film, but in the mean time the story concentrates more on how cruelly treated Shuisheng is by the beautiful prostitute Xiao Jinbao, who clearly is herself very angered and frustrated by something and takes it out on Shuisheng. Some of her anger is caused by her own virtual captivity by Tang. In spite of her status as a popular singer, Tang keeps her on a short leash and uses her like a piece of furniture. Shuisheng struggles to understand his new employers and their current crisis.
By now international audiences have come to expect Zhang Yi-Mou films to star Gong Li. The two have been very closely associated since 1988, having made RED SORGHUM, JU DOU, RAISE THE RED LANTERN, THE STORY OF QUI JU, and TO LIVE. In fact, their association is to come to an end after just one more film already made but not yet released entitled TEMPTRESS MOON. Gong Li gives her most unusual and perhaps most complex performance. But perhaps she plays it with a little less credibility than in some of her previous films. Certainly this is the most fanciful role she has played. It is hard for a Westerner to judge nuances in her acting due to the language barrier in this subtitled film.
Zhang is not constrained by some of the conventions of popular Western films, so he is free to experiment a little with the form. The plot takes some turns that would be unlikely in a Western film, particularly toward the end. He is also able to tone down the violence or leave it off-screen entirely. And not just the violence but much of the crime story takes place where the viewpoint character, Shuisheng, cannot see it. Zheng uses Steadicam shots to give us Shuisheng's subjective viewpoint extensively. This is his first use of Steadicam and he reports in an interview that he mistrusts a reliance on the device. This is certainly one of Zhang's most opulent films and it seems very strange to see musical production numbers in one of his films. Still, one cannot say overall that it all works. I rate this one a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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