Gong Li's early works are almost all tragic female figures in the alternating era of old and new, which has a lot to do with Zhang Yimou, who discovered her debut.
Chrysanthemum
"Kikudou", which was banned in China in 1990 and released in Japan, is a film in the 1920s, where the confrontation between new and old social consciousness was fierce. "Ju Dou" is a pioneering and large-scale exposed that under the feudal clan shouzhen ideology, the young girl Ju Dou rebelled against the domestic violence of her 60-year-old husband Yang Jinshan, and her prime-aged nephew Yang Tianqing had a life of pity and iniquity.
Ju Dou is the central character in this movie, and is the most eye-catching global character. Her beauty is the typical restrained beauty of Anhui Nanping, with the feminine color of traditional women! Red face and thin life is a fate that women cannot escape, and Ju Dou is particularly tragic.
Yang Jinshan, a dyeing shop owner in his 60s, spent a lot of money to buy 18-year-old Judou as his wife and passed on the generations. The elderly Yang Jinshan had a physical illness, did not do anything in the life of husband and wife, married two wives successively, suffered yang Jinshan's torture and died, and did not leave a man and a half woman. Long-term illness, Yang Jinshan's psychology, has long been distorted.
In the village, Yang Jinshan was a polite and kind dyeing mill owner and the head of the Yang family. In the night after the people face the judou, that is, the evil ghost who has stripped off the human skin, the skin whip is dipped in cold water, and the shochu is sprinkled on the wound, and the white ketone body skin of the judou is open to the flesh. There are also some unseen shots that are edited before being allowed to be released.
For Ju Dou, who is deep in feudal thought, life is hopeless, as if what awaits her is the tragic death of Yang Jinshan's previous two wives.
Zhang Yimou's film is good at using objects, colors, and natural scenery to express the inner transformation of the characters.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > two beams of sunlight bring to Gong Li's hope</h1>
In Nanping, Anhui In the 1920s, feudal ideas and clan rules were the natural laws in this ancient village at that time. Everyone in this environment has a deep imprint on their bones and blood.
This branding is particularly evident in men: Yang Jinshan is bound to the obsession of having a son who has "no filial piety and three, and no queen is greater"; Yang Tianqing is bound to the filial piety of nurturing grace, regardless of the cross-level love with Ju Dou, always maintaining the image of his filial piety.
Yang Jinshan tortured Ju Dou to death every night, and every morning he would take a bath and cleanse himself full of scars. The nephew Yang Tianqing is a child adopted by her husband and is not related by blood. In the movie, Yang Jinshan's small talk with the people who came to dye the cloth revealed Yang Tianqing's life.
Tianqing was the child of Yang Jinshan's neighbor, and the neighbor couple died early. Yang Jinshan, who had no son, took the orphan back home, changed his name to Tianqing, and adopted him as a nephew. It can be seen that at this time, Yang Jinshan still thinks that he can give birth to a son; instead of being an heir like ordinary people.
The 40-year-old Tian Qing has not yet married, because Yang Jinshan is reluctant to pay for it. Tianqing, on the other hand, works in the dyeing workshop every day, going out to deliver the cloth that has been dyed, without a moment's pause. Living here, Tianqing is not like Yang Jinshan's nephew, but more like a free long-term worker.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > a hole dug by Azure in a donkey shed</h1>
The man's physical desires caused the azure ghost to make the god punch a hole in the wall. This matter was also done by the ancients Kuang Heng, but Kuang Heng used the light reading of his neighbors to learn. Tianqing is a voyeuristic aunt Judou bathing, and the young Judou is beautiful and has a fair body; it meets all of Tianqing's fantasies about women. Here it is revealed that the 40-year-old Azure is also eager to have the warmth of a wife.
During a voyeuristic, the donkey suddenly barked, and Ju Dou, who was taking a bath, felt the strangeness of the livestock shed next door. At this time, Tianqing, who was spying on Ju Dou's bath, was really frightened. At this time, Ju Dou got dressed and walked in. Cramped and uneasy, Tianqing panicked and arranged the baskets and debris hanging on the wall, and when he walked out of the donkey shed, the fence door would not open, revealing panic everywhere. Tianqing's performance in this way shows that he knows in his heart that his voyeuristic behavior has violated the principle of common ethics and has run away with a weak heart.
Ju Dou gently walked to the position where Tianqing was staying, and opened the firewood to see what Tianqing was doing here? When Ju Dou opened the firewood, there was nothing, only a ray of sunlight coming in obliquely from the hole in the wall! Ju Dou leaned down and looked over the small hole, and saw the range of the small hole, which was the place where he took a bath.
Ju Dou grabbed her collar at this time and panicked; she reluctantly leaned down again to look, still in the place where she was taking a bath, and she blushed again. Looking at the hole, seeing the sunlight shining in, her expression suddenly became happy again, as if she had gained new hope.
Li Baotian plays Tian Qing
Here, through judou's actions and changes in look, the film shows the change in Judou's heart. A moment ago, Ju Dou was still living in the endless torment of Yang Jinshan's night, unable to extricate himself; life was black and hopeless! At the next moment, the sunlight that shot obliquely from this small hole seemed to illuminate Ju Dou's heart; because she knew that in this home, Azure liked her, and life seemed to have color in an instant.
The wildness in Ju Dou's heart defeated the shackles of traditional ethics and morality, and exploded with unprecedented courage. She began to take advantage of Yang Jinshan's absence at home every opportunity to go to Tian Qing to confirm his friendship with her. The cowardly Azure did not dare to face Ju Dou directly.
Kikuto said, "Is the aunt a wolf?" Why are you hiding so much? ”
Azure had completely fallen at this moment. They did something shameful for the first time in the Yang Family Dyeing Workshop! Ju Dou's foot pedal opened the card head supporting the dyeing car, and the turning car turned the red dyeing cloth down, and the layers of red cloth folded and fell into the dyeing pool! Director Zhang Yimou used this specific object to tell the audience that the physiological desire of the two people overcame reason!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > 2 Days open the cellar, and the sun shines on azure and chrysanthemum</h1>
In the movie, another spot of sunlight appears when a thick beam of light falls from the sky when the dye cellar is opened in the process of looking for his mother after his son returns home.
At this time, Ju Dou and Tian Qing, the two individuals were intertwined, lying weakly in the cellar, and the thin air suffocated them. For this meeting, the two personally chose a secret cellar carnival, but almost paid the price of their lives.
The effect of this ray of sunlight here shows that the life of Judou and Azure will not end in the cellar. This is the light of life that brings the hope of life.
As soon as Tianbai saw this scene, he coldly opened Tianqing's hand around Ju Dou, threw it aside, and carried his mother Ju Dou out of the cellar and put it in the house. Ju Dou's life was saved.
Tianbai's return also carried Azure on his back. At this moment, Azure's life was also saved, and the sun represented hope.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > two fires of the Yang family dyeing workshop - despair</h1>
It has to be said that the style and theme of Zhang Yimou's early films are all focused on the relationship between the sexes in feudal society. For example, "Big Red Lantern Hanging High", "Red Sorghum" and so on. The movie "Ju Dou" is also under this theme, profoundly exposing the shackles brought by feudal ideas to women.
The director pushed the conflict in the story to white-hot through the two fires of the Yang family dyeing workshop.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > a fire lit by a desperate and hateful Yang Jinshan</h1>
Yang Jinshan, who originally occupied absolute control, suffered a stroke on the way out and was paralyzed by Tianqing after being carried back by Tianqing. In the family affairs, Ju Dou and Tian Qing also became the lord.
Ju Dou told Yang Jinshan: "Tianbai is my child and Tianqing's child, you go angry!" ”
Yang Jinshan fell into despair of the status quo, and his son Tianbai, who had been obsessed with his life, was a product of gouge. The body was paralyzed to rely on the care of Ju Dou and Tianqing, and then looked at his wife and Tianqing, and was unscrupulously happy at home, and the family was a family of three.
Yang Jinshan no longer had any hope of life, and he felt sorry for his ancestors. For Ju Dou's infidelity and Tianqing's betrayal, look at the shame symbol dangling in front of your eyes. Yang Jinshan was so hateful that he climbed in the middle of the night to lock the gate, and then piled the colorful cloth hanging in the yard and lit it with fire at the bottom of the stairs, trying to burn ju dou and tianbai.
Tianbai's cry woke Ju Dou up, and she and Tianqing joined forces to extinguish the fire. Since then, they have packed Yang Jinshan in a bucket and hung it at night to prevent him from setting the fire!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" >2 After the hope was shattered, JuDou burned the Yang family dyeing factory</h1>
The second fire, after Tianbai smashed his father Tianqing to death, this was the fire that Ju Dou himself lit.
The dislocation of identity and the shackles of ethics and morality have grown deeply in the young heart of Tianbai! Tianbai is the crystallization of the invisible love between Tianqing and Judou Dyeing Factory, forced by secular ethics and morality, the children of the two people are considered by the clan to be the descendants of Yang Jinshan.
On the Yang family tree, Yang Tianbai is the owner of the Yang family dyeing workshop, the son of Yang Jinshan, and the defender of the Yang clan rules. Yang Tianqing is Tianbai's older brother, who has an affair with his mother Ju dou, and Tianbai grew up in the gossip of his neighbors in the village. His heart was also twisted like Yang Jinshan, and he wanted to get rid of this situation of ridicule and embarrassment.
Under the premise of knowing that Tianqing is his biological father, he still throws Tianqing, who is unconscious due to stealing joy, into the dyeing pool. At this time, the water was cold, and Azure woke up in an instant, struggling in the dyeing pool. Ju Dou heard the movement and also woke up, seeing her and Tianqing's son Tianbai, with a big stick in his hand, standing like a demon at the edge of the dyeing pool!
Judou used all his strength to climb down the stairs, trying to stop Tianbai. She even shouted, that's your biological father. However, none of this seems to work. Tianbai did not hesitate to raise the stick in his hand and smash it on Tianqing's head, and the red instantly faded in the pool, and Tianqing did not move anymore!
At this time, Ju Dou had no lover who had been dependent on each other for more than ten years, and his own son Tianbai killed Tianqing. The cruelty of reality cut off Ju Dou's hopes. She piled the colorful cloth in the courtyard like Yang Jinshan and lit the dyeing workshop.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > resistance and compromise; wild bravery and filial piety cowardice</h1>
"Ju Dou", a film named after the heroine, is full of endless suffering and despair. Judou was a rebel among feudal women. She was bought from Yang Jinshan, the owner of the dyeing workshop, as a wife, and the torture of beating or scolding, and Yang Jinshan's inability to have sex, but asked her to break free from the devil's world of having a son.
She wildly and bravely wins over Azure's love. Although in name she was Azure's sister-in-law, she was actually Azure's wife. Her initial boldness and determination, against the tragic fate, gained more than ten years of love nourishment. There is no doubt that she is different from other women in this small village called Nanping, and she has a spirit of resistance.
Her ending is: Tianqing is killed by her own son, and she is desperately buried in the sea of fire. This is not because of Judou's resistance, but because of Judou's compromise in the face of Tianqing's decision.
Ju Dou begins with the two of them falling in love personally, and until the end of the whole movie, he is persuading Tianqing to leave here and live in a place that no one is familiar with. But Tianqing was cowardly and coerced by feudal filial piety and clan forces.
Tianqing was raised by Yang Jinshan, although it was as a long-term worker in the dyeing workshop, not as an uncle and nephew; but it was also raised by Yang Jinshan, and the grace of nurturing cannot be abandoned. The idea of filial piety is deeply embedded in Tianqing's mind, although the 40-year-old Yang Jinshang does not marry his daughter-in-law to start a family, endlessly let him work and squeeze him. Azure did not resist.
On the other hand, the clan, a system that has always existed for thousands of years, has unparalleled moral constraints. After Yang Jinshan's death, according to the rules of the Yang clan, Judou could not remarry; Yang Tianqing did not share half of Yang Jinshan's property, and was also driven to live in the original parents' home. This shows the power of the clan power in the countryside at that time.
Yang Tianqing gave in and moved to the "Old Wang Family" next door. It can be seen here that when Yang Jinshan explained Yang Tianqing's life, he said that he was a neighbor's child. Yang Tianqing may be the child of the old Wang family next door. Therefore, he was excluded from the Yang family.
When Judou persuaded Tianqing to leave with the child, Tianqing always refused. He was afraid that the townspeople would say that he was not filial piety, incest, selfishness and cowardice, which caused a deviation in the cognition of the path of growth in Tianbai. In the end, Ben is a family, but Tianqing is smashed to death by her son. Ju Dou desperately burned the tragic end of the Yang family dyeing factory!
The root of the tragedy lies in Yang Tianqing's cowardice and too much attention to filial piety ethics, and too much attention to the evaluation of him by the outside world.
The movie "Ju Dou" is tragic and depressing, and Gong Li fell seriously ill after filming this movie that year. But at the same time, Ju Dou's rebellion also sounded the clarion call for women to rebel against unfair fate, and broke the abscess under the patriarchal ideology of the old society.