Culture itself has a certain regionality, and a culture is derived from a place, and if we talk about culture beyond regionality, it is not objective in itself. Therefore, we need to fully understand regional differences, and on this basis, it makes sense to talk about culture. On the other hand, to talk about culture regardless of territoriality is a prejudice, not a so-called impartiality and objectivity.
There are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people, for the same culture, or an event, different people naturally have different understandings, the film "A Generation of Demon Queens" recommended to you today It is a story of a certain period of history or a historical figure from the standpoint of a Hong Kong director, the director of this film is Li Hanxiang, a typical Hong Kong director, in his eyes, Cixi as the last queen mother of the Qing Dynasty and the actual ruler, what kind of face does it look like, it may be interesting to look at this film.
"A Generation of Demon Queens" tells the story of Cixi, but the focus of this film is not to simply portray the character of Cixi, but to gradually outline Cixi, a historical figure that ordinary people are not familiar with, from the impressions of different characters. To establish Cixi as a historical figure, director Li Hanxiang adopted several different perspectives, namely the Empress of the East Palace, the Tongzhi Emperor, Cixi's favored eunuch An Dehai, and the ordinary palace maid Guilian and others. From the perspective of these people, Cixi, as a historical figure who was originally far away from everyone, walked into the audience's sight little by little.
Of course, director Li Hanxiang's description of Cixi mostly comes from folklore and wild historical records of various stall literature, as for what kind of person Cixi is, there is not much conclusion on this point, and the description of Cixi that we are familiar with is just a historical figure who has been evaluated or closed in the coffin, because there is not too much official explanation, therefore, there are different opinions on the shaping of this character, therefore, director Li Hanxiang is borrowing this logic to interpret his own story.
In the eyes of Empress Donggong, Cixi is a sister who can share her hatred and hatred, and Empress Donggong's connivance with Cixi is itself doomed to her own tragedy. Conspiracy theories are also a common view of history, from the perspective of stall literature, the inner courtyard of the deep palace is naturally full of all kinds of court struggles, and the popularity of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "Yanxi Raiders" also confirms the audience's recognition of such a setting, because this is indeed in line with the audience's curiosity about a certain historical figure.
Because of the connivance of Empress Donggong to Cixi, Cixi was eventually able to grow into a powerful woman at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and after the growth of a historical figure, it is natural to consolidate her position, so this person who once pressed herself became a stumbling block on the road to Cixi's success。
For the Tongzhi Emperor, Cixi built it into a tool in front of the stage, because to find an agent who is conducive to her own control, Cixi naturally needs to let the Tongzhi Emperor act according to her own preferences, once the Tongzhi Emperor wants to escape from this cage, then the storm behind him will come. Emperor Tongzhi's death from Hualiu disease came to a certain extent from his own youthful ignorance, and his youthful ignorance itself came from his rebellious psychology towards Cixi.
The relationship between An Dehai and Cixi is defined by the director of this film as a perverted dependence, which is also in line with the attitude of Hong Kong directors towards history, whether it is something they know or not, as long as it is deconstructed in an entertaining way, then history at any time can be explained clearly, which is a common attitude of Hong Kong directors towards the history they do not know. That is, Hong Kong films generally adopted a curious perspective for costume films around the 70s, and they did not care about the story itself carried by costume films, but how such stories were combined with people's preferences in reality.
In this way, the stories that were told in the 70s, whether they were from Strange Tales or some other novel and secret history, essentially satisfied the bad tastes of Hong Kong people at that time, and it was obviously unwise to expect Hong Kong directors to think deeply about historical events.
And Guilian is just to make a comparison between herself and Cixi herself, the existence of Guilian confirms the suppression of an ordinary woman with feudal etiquette in Cixi's era, Guilian from a lively and cheerful little girl, gradually reduced to a fireworks woman, her transformation is just because of a small willfulness of power, even if she won the favor of the Tongzhi Emperor, but for Cixi, she is still a dispensable object, and the Tongzhi Emperor has no ability to compete with his mother for a woman.
And the Cixi outlined by these characters, finally entered the peak of character shaping at the end of the film, through the torture and killing of the empress of the Tongzhi Emperor, Cixi's ugly character image suddenly became distinct, if this role is vague most of the time before, then at this moment, it becomes extremely clear, it is precisely because of the previous Wen Tun, the final impact presented to the audience will become more and more intense, but director Li Hanxiang may not have complete overall planning ability, the description of Cixi herself in the previous part does not play a role in fixing the character's personality, but divides the audience's attention, when the scattered story can't support the establishment of the main character, it will eventually make the character collapse in splendor.
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