Shanghai Triad

Hi Aki,

Tonight we watched Shanghai Triad a 1995 movie from Zhang Yimou with the exquisite Gong Li.

It’s a gangster movie set in the 1930s. Based on a book, Gang Rules. But credits say basically ‘loosely based on’ so they just took a couple situations, couple ideas, from the book. All the same, there are several references to ‘the rules’ which survive, obviously, from the book.

The basic story is a very old one: the head of the Tang family in Shanghai has a lovely young mistress who’s a showgirl at the city’s hottest nightclub. The boss only trusts other men from the Tang family; but this doesn’t prevent his right hand man Song from betraying him, first by fucking the mistress, then by dealing with a rival gangster to take over the Tang crime triad. The old boss, however, has kept watch on all his men, and knows all about this; he lets Song play his hand, then has Song killed, along with mistress Gong Li.

The interesting twist on this is seeing it all through the eyes of 14 year old Shengsui, a ‘country bumpkin’ Tang relative fresh from the country, who is given the job of being the mistress’s servant and gofer. This whole story is compressed into, the credits tell us, 7 days (although they show us at least 8 days; I guess the number 7 was important enough for them to cheat). Each day is counted off with titles: First Day, Second Day, … Fifth Day, Sixth Day, Seventh Day. The kid at first hates Gong Li’s ‘Miss’ because he sees how cruel and bitchy she is, and because she mocks him and calls him stupid. But when they all have to hide out on a small island, and the kid sees who ‘Miss’ really is – for she was once a country bumpkin herself, before the Boss pulled her into this life – he comes to like her and even love her. But she dies and there is nothing the kid can do about that; more, the kid sees that the cute little girl on the island will be the next ‘Miss’ in a few years, as the Boss takes her back to Shanghai.

As usual here with Yimou, the production is gorgeous and impeccable: costumes, props, sets, musical numbers, the reeds by the water along the banks of the island, the setting sun, the moon over the water. Colors are fully saturated, with an almost golden, orange yellow predominating – the usual ‘nostalgic past time’ color photographers pick. Also red, of course, from Gong Li’s mouth to blood on knives to dresses. He makes a big deal out of mirrors in the kid’s introduction to Shanghai Triad life too, then on the island of course the mirrors disappear. I guess this underscores the falseness and superficiality of the gangster lifestyle, and contrast it with the sincerity and reality of peasant life on the island.

By telling the tale through the kid’s eyes, Yimou also tells us a coming of age tale; even as the little girl is now planned to be the next ‘Miss’ so Shengsui is probably being planned to be the next Song – if he’s smart enough and ruthless enough.

One bit that let me down was an emphasis on long steadicam shots representing the kid’s point of view wandering up and down the stairs of a mansion, or through the paths on the island, without cutting back to seeing the kid walking. The bravura of the uninterrupted long steadicam take seems to predominate over good filmmaking, and in general the approach to anchoring us to the kid is weak. But since the story is constructed around his experiences, the film gets away with it.

A beautiful film, but in the end, beauty is not enough. And there is something lacking in the effects. There are shots to remember a long time, but they’re only shots. The film means less than those shots and the production design.

(01 April 2009)