Hero, propaganda, and Zhang Yimou’s price

Okay, I waited, but now that Tom feels embattled, I’m backing him up publicly. (He first took this position earlier this month.)

To discuss what is awry in Hero, it is necessary to reveal the final moments of the film in detail.

The summary version is that Zhang Yimou, a man whose films were once regularly banned in China, and who nearly always criticized Communism and the Chinese government in those films, even when they were not banned, has finally succumbed to the censors and produced the Chinese equivalent of Mel Gibson’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

If my surmise is correct I can understand why he has done this, even as I disagree with and lament it.

The rest of this goes below the fold, so you may choose to see the movie without being spoiled.

At the end of Hero, Jet Li’s character, Nameless, is revealed to be an assassin, using all the various stories in the film to gain access to the Emperor (or “King of Qin”) to kill him. But the Emperor makes his case, and persuades Nameless that national unity is more important than personal revenge. (This is gross oversimplification of the actual motives.)

Nameless walks toward the exit of the Imperial Palace when the guards learn his mission. As he reaches the door, a thousand soldiers stand behind him. Nameless turns, accepting his fate, and watches the thousand arrows arc through the air, about to kill him.

The message, the theme, is that China’s most heroic and noble individuals must die for a Stronger China.

I have said elsewhere that when I first came to the end of the movie, I said “Nameless is Taiwan.”

It’s true. The entire thematic weight of the movie is thrown behind the thinly–veiled proposition that it does not matter how free, prosperous or good Taiwan is, nor how poorly Mainland China measures up to Taiwan’s standard, because Taiwan must succumb to China. There is no other interpretation I have encountered which I consider defensible.

How could Zhang Yimou come to this?

Yimou is the most internationally famous of China’s “Fifth Generation” of filmmakers (the term being a propaganda ploy, by the way). The only other international name from that group is Chen Kaige. But it was Yimou who scored the most attention, film after film, and that surely angered somebody in the censor’s office.

Yimou’s first film as a director was Red Sorghum—also his first film with Gong Li, another fascinating aspect of this story we shan’t go into here. This was followed in short order by Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju and To Live.

Ju Dou was banned in China for a time for its eroticism, though one may read political content into it if one wishes.

Raise the Red Lantern, however, was banned for its subtle condemnation of the Tian An Men Square massacre and the government’s coverup of it. It is a powerful film, and perhaps Yimou’s most accomplished work in maintaining tone. If you have seen it, you may wonder what part reflects upon Tian An Men. All of it does, really, but the ending especially, with the house’s denial of what everyone in the house knows happened.

Then Yimou made The Story of Qiu Ju, and how this didn’t get banned I simply do not know. It is one of Yimou’s least–seen films in the US, of the ones which are available. Gong Li is a rural wife whose husband has been injured in a petty fight with a family friend. The friend, however, is also the local government official, who is arrogant with his (miniscule) power. So, of course, the man will not apologize, because he is an Official, and therefore cannot be wrong. The rest of the story is simple: Qiu Ju wants an apology, and keeps petitioning higher officials to order the lower one to give it. The resulting travails with haughty, uncaring officials, who are concerned only with more important things, is like a visual textbook of the problems inherent with centralized control of everything in life. No cartoon villains, just impersonal, uncaring government failing to supply human dignity, and forbidding the search for it elsewhere.

The ending of Qiu Ju is quietly devastating. She returns home to discover that her petitions have finally been heard. Some official looked at her husband’s health record, and decided a response is in order. So the official—who was, remember, also a family friend, and a decent though flawed man—has been arrested and taken away. (Implicitly, he very well could end up dead. Corrupt officials are not well–loved in China.) Qiu Ju gets home just as the police car pulls away, and she tries running after it, weeping, crying out that she only wanted an apology, an admission from the man that he was wrong, nothing more. But the State is deaf to her pleas. The final image is a freeze on her face, her expression as she stands alone on an empty road, unable to stop her friend from being taken away.

As I say, I don’t think this one was ever banned. But, again, don’t ask me why.

To Live is a film that I don’t understand even getting made, let alone banned. It follows one family through the communist revolution, right up to the latter years of the Cultural Revolution, and just about every incident demonstrates how the Communist government fucks them over every step of the way, in ways both large and small. It stars Gong Li again, and also the excellent Chinese actor You Ge, in what might be the only film of his commonly available in the US. I highly, highly recommend this one. It is Yimou’s best film, bar none, even if it his not his most technically profficient.

It was, alas, his last film of completely independent spirit. The PRC government allowed its release internationally, but forbade You Ge and Yimou to leave China to promote it.

Yimou’s next film, and last film with Gong Li, was Shanghai Triad, which had virtually no political element, and is altogether an unremarkable film apart from its cinematogrpahy and Gong Li’s radiant costuming and song and dance numbers.

Yimou made at least one film after this that has never been seen in the US, a modern day love story in Beijing. I don’t know the English rendition of the title, and while I have seen it, it was without subtitles. It’s very, very different from anything else he has done, before or since, and he puts in an appearance in a hilarious walk–on part. So far as I could tell, no political content.

Not One Less is an excellent movie, but also the beginning of Yimou’s insertion of government propaganda into his films. It is a simple story of a young girl (14 years old) being given responsibility for teaching in a rural classroom and keeping all the children from running away to the city. One can safely ignore the Message, for it is a charming and moving little story. But the Message is there—and bluntly, in the end titles.

The Road Home might seem to be a return to critical form for Yimou, as one of the obstacles to the young couple in love is the man’s outspoken political views, and the government’s dim view of them. However, the handling of the subject in the film is more that government interference in daily life is unpleasant, but necessary and ultimately acceptable. If not pro–PRC, it certainly is not anti–PRC, where in Yimou’s films of the early 1990s such a middle–ground position would never have been taken.

And then, finally, Hero, the most expensive film by far in Yimou’s career (excepting, now, House of the Flying Daggers), with an all–star cast. And a message not only palatable to Jiang Zemin, but likely the source of much whacking material for him.

Here is what I think happened.

Yimou, viewed as a difficult child, was told to back off from his “childish” messages or he would never make another film. And so he did. Then, he was told that if he wanted to continue making films, he should include some “better” messages. And so he did. And, finally, he was told that he would do what the government mandated, or never again would he put image to film.

And he swallowed any objections he had, and did what he had to do to continue pursuing his dreams.

This is entirely speculation on my part. It very well could be far more complex than this—for instance, Hero‘s position on Taiwan is, without doubt, the single most popular one in China—but I believe it is not far from the truth.

He compromised his integrity.

I will continue watching his movies. I hope that I will continue to find things in them to enjoy. But his voice is lost, I fear, and only his technical mastery remains.

As a side note, if you want to see a very different movie about the same moment in China’s history, Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin features the very same King of Qin. When you get to the end of that one, you’ll wish that Nameless had not only killed him, but also made the fucker die slow. Very slow.