What to say about this film?
The only reason I know it because I watched it as a kid more than twenty years ago and was absolutely transfixed.
The source material is an epic by Jin Yong, arguably his magnum opus, "Tian Long Ba Bu." That novel has three major threads; this film picks the most tantalizingly fantastic one, ignores the rest, and basically makes a fantasia on that.
In order to understand this film, it helps to be conversant with Jin Yong's world and the Chinese fictional matrix. There are sects, there are martial arts, there is Shaolin monastery. There's also a very strong thread of an element that I can't quite translate, but "divinity" might be the right word. Basically, there is the idea that if you practice martial arts enough, or find some kind of shortcut, you can become a divine being.
The best way to understand this film is to see it in levels of power. Power here isn't money or political; it's basically having superpowers, that "divinity" I mentioned. Like I said, one can cultivate power by practicing martial arts, but there are those who are at an unreachable level of power, which gives them the ability to fly across huge distances, launch powerful attacks that destroy mountains, etc.
It also makes them incredibly beautiful, and it makes sense that they're played by two great ladies of Chinese cinema, Brigitte Lin and Gong Li. They are luminous in every frame they are in. The other, earthbound characters look a bit dingy and a bit pinched, but Lin and Gong are stunning, caressed by incredible lighting and color. The camera does what the plot can't do; it truly convinces us they are gods.
Anyway, back to the plot. These two ladies are two all-powerful beings, but -- and this is important -- they're enslaved by their very human desires. Gong is in love with Lin's twin sister, who loves their martial brother instead; Lin loves him too, but he isn't interested. So you have these two superpowerful people who are deeply unhappy with life.
In the background are the "commoners," per se. They're the squabble who have some martial arts abilities, but are puny in comparison to Lin and Gong. There's the power-hunger villain Ding Chun Qiu, the hustling Ah Zi who tries her best to ride the coattails of the great, and the naive Xu Zhu, who basically wants none of this. This film is about the reversals of fortune -- Ding manages to gain great power, but basically becomes a monster and the others combine to defeat him; Xu Zhu gains great power that he doesn't want; Ah Zi finally gains power when she least expects it. And Lin and Gong, in the end, lose their power without having achieved what they truly wanted.
There's something beautiful in the last glimpses we have of those two ladies, especially of Lin, who has been a campy firecracker throughout the film. She's walking through a monastery, still beautifully lit, still luminous, but now with a tremendous air of sadness. She has finally come to enlightenment, or at least Buddhist enlightenment; everything is transient, power becomes nothingness, human desires are illusions.
So is this even a good film? One first has to answer the question of what kind of film it is and understand what kind of milieu it's in. The characters are operatic, the plot is fantastic. But something about it has stuck with me over the years, and something about it is, I think, quite beautiful and moving.
The only reason I know it because I watched it as a kid more than twenty years ago and was absolutely transfixed.
The source material is an epic by Jin Yong, arguably his magnum opus, "Tian Long Ba Bu." That novel has three major threads; this film picks the most tantalizingly fantastic one, ignores the rest, and basically makes a fantasia on that.
In order to understand this film, it helps to be conversant with Jin Yong's world and the Chinese fictional matrix. There are sects, there are martial arts, there is Shaolin monastery. There's also a very strong thread of an element that I can't quite translate, but "divinity" might be the right word. Basically, there is the idea that if you practice martial arts enough, or find some kind of shortcut, you can become a divine being.
The best way to understand this film is to see it in levels of power. Power here isn't money or political; it's basically having superpowers, that "divinity" I mentioned. Like I said, one can cultivate power by practicing martial arts, but there are those who are at an unreachable level of power, which gives them the ability to fly across huge distances, launch powerful attacks that destroy mountains, etc.
It also makes them incredibly beautiful, and it makes sense that they're played by two great ladies of Chinese cinema, Brigitte Lin and Gong Li. They are luminous in every frame they are in. The other, earthbound characters look a bit dingy and a bit pinched, but Lin and Gong are stunning, caressed by incredible lighting and color. The camera does what the plot can't do; it truly convinces us they are gods.
Anyway, back to the plot. These two ladies are two all-powerful beings, but -- and this is important -- they're enslaved by their very human desires. Gong is in love with Lin's twin sister, who loves their martial brother instead; Lin loves him too, but he isn't interested. So you have these two superpowerful people who are deeply unhappy with life.
In the background are the "commoners," per se. They're the squabble who have some martial arts abilities, but are puny in comparison to Lin and Gong. There's the power-hunger villain Ding Chun Qiu, the hustling Ah Zi who tries her best to ride the coattails of the great, and the naive Xu Zhu, who basically wants none of this. This film is about the reversals of fortune -- Ding manages to gain great power, but basically becomes a monster and the others combine to defeat him; Xu Zhu gains great power that he doesn't want; Ah Zi finally gains power when she least expects it. And Lin and Gong, in the end, lose their power without having achieved what they truly wanted.
There's something beautiful in the last glimpses we have of those two ladies, especially of Lin, who has been a campy firecracker throughout the film. She's walking through a monastery, still beautifully lit, still luminous, but now with a tremendous air of sadness. She has finally come to enlightenment, or at least Buddhist enlightenment; everything is transient, power becomes nothingness, human desires are illusions.
So is this even a good film? One first has to answer the question of what kind of film it is and understand what kind of milieu it's in. The characters are operatic, the plot is fantastic. But something about it has stuck with me over the years, and something about it is, I think, quite beautiful and moving.
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