'FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE' (1993). REVIEW by Diao Ying

Physically we are always located somewhere, but our mind, body and soul are often dislocated. In the Chinese Farewell My Concubine, a top prize winner at the Cannes International Film Festival, the hero -or heroine-, Dieyi, had a dislocated life.

This is an epic movie. The time runs from 1925 to 1977. The setting is Beijing. The film's title comes from a classic Peking opera, where a concubine cut her throat with the sword of the king on the night of his defeat.


The movie is mainly about the love triangle among two famous actors of the opera and a woman. They met as small boys at opera school. In those days women were not allowed to play on stage. Dieyi, a gentle, pretty and fragile boy, was chosen to play the concubine. Xiaolou, the stronger one, played the king.

Dieyi, who devoted to his role as an actress as a kid, was mentally trained as a woman. Throughout his life he was loyal to his first and only love, Xiaolou, the king on the stage, and his fellow boy in real life. Xiaolou, however, was straight. He fell in love with a beautiful prostitute and married her. He treated Dieyi as his brother, unware of his love for him.

But dislocation here is not only personal. Nation, country and the world are often in a state of dislocation. In this movie, the love story also interweaves with the history of China. From the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930's, the surrender of the Japanese at the end of World War II, the rule of the Nationalist Government, the Chinese Civil War, the victory of the communists in 1949 and, finally, the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

The movie is extremely subtle in showing the love, life, and arts related in the story. One is amazed at the pretty costumes, the Peking opera scene and all the fantastic dialogues. But it is also grand in that it displays the long and complex history in two hours in such a clear way.

The movie is full of memorable scenes. The Peking opera performance is beautiful. The training of the boys to be actors and actresses reminds one of the British boys in the fiction of Dickens. In the scenes describing the Cultural Revolution, decent people furiously denounce their friends and loved ones. It shows how dislocation in a society can go extreme, and makes one wonder how fragile people's souls are.

I find the review from New York Times a classic description: "It's a narrative of suicides, miscarriages, betrayals, drug addiction and sorrowful paradoxes: good intentions inevitably go wrong, which could be an observation about the Communist revolution". The last point might explain why, despite its success overseas, the movie was never publicly showed in its home country, China. That is another example of dislocation, isn’t it?