Farewell My Concubine
Harvey Weinstein had studios that were infamously corrupt, and it was under this management that he butchered Chen Kaige’s “Farewell My Concubine,” slicing almost 20 minutes off of the Palme d’Or-winning version before its U.S. theatrical release in 1993. The fact that Roger still gave the edited version of this movie four stars and it ended up with two Oscar nominations just speaks to how great artists can shine through even when their work has been watered down though it should be noted that Weinstein’s mistake here wasn’t as egregious as his treatment of Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster,” which nearly destroyed that film by cutting it to ribbons.
The 1993 edition of “Farewell My Concubine” was still a powerhouse of emotion and epic storytelling, but now it has been restored to its original Cannes glory with a full 4K release getting its first-ever theatrical run this month. The movie is more gorgeous than ever, a bold blend of history and personal storytelling with one of Leslie Cheung’s most extraordinary performances.
“Farewell My Concubine” is a flashback narrative centered on two opera performers who reunite for the first time in years, triggering an inquiry into how they got here. Chen’s adaptation of the Lillian Lee novel then flashes back to the 1930s, when a feminine boy named Douzi (Leslie Cheung) and a young man named Shitou (Fengyi Zhang) become friends at the brutally abusive Peking Opera Academy.
The boys there are subjected to intense physical training, ridiculed, beaten and pitted against one another; because of Douzi’s appearance, he is given female roles, but his artistic growing pains make him an even easier target for bullies both within himself and without these early scenes can be hard to watch partly because they are so well acted by Chen’s young cast, particularly Yin Zhi in performance scenes as Douzi.
Douzi takes the stage name Cheng Dieyi, and Shitou becomes Duan Xiaolou as they rise to fame on the stage which only furthers Chen’s themes of fractured identity here. This is a story about boys who are beaten to remove any sense of individuality so that they can take on whatever role is required by the opera; their names are stripped from them, and they become not just performers but also their characters a point further underscored by blurring the lines between the play “Farewell My Concubine” itself and those who act it out. Then Chen pulls back another layer with his characters being cloaked in the violence and oppression of China’s Cultural Revolution yet another attempt at dehumanizing these people until there is nothing left to identify with.
Dieyi and Xiaolou find themselves drawn together in both professional admiration and romantic love for one another, but it’s Juxian (a stunning Gong Li) who proves to be the wedge driving them apart. The love triangle and performances from Cheung, Zhang and Gong give “Farewell My Concubine” an emotional register that helps counterbalance stories about shifting art forms under political pressure, when the Cultural Revolution finally rips through this trio of characters, “Farewell My Concubine” becomes as stark a tragedy as any opera within its frames, leading up to some truly unforgettable closing sequences over the final half-hour or so.
Naturally, even before the ending of Chen’s epic, there are some unforgettable scenes. They’re really throughout the piece, thanks to Gu Changwei’s fluid and lyrical camerawork that always puts its characters in perfect frames without underlining the epicness of the work. It is astonishingly beautiful but also tactile and relatable at once. “Farewell My Concubine” does not succumb to what ails most films unfolding over half a century they can get too caught up in production and costume design, which tends to make them feel hermetic and distant. The world of “Farewell My Concubine” may be unlike any other place its viewers have ever been; it is still so immediate and so now because its emotional life never stops or slows down. Like great opera, Chen’s film will live on among us for centuries.
It helps when performers are committed like this trio here especially with Gong Li as a future star, especially with Leslie Cheung as an always one
of a kind force of nature. I had forgotten how much he could do just with his eyes; I hope the restoration of this film sends people back toward his work in “A Better Tomorrow,” “Days of Being Wild,” “Happy Together.” But 30 years later this movie looks different because he’s gone, it gives everything else another layer or two of emotional weight. Gong is amazing, Zhang too, but it’s how openly Cheung wears everything on his face that keeps this film tied itself.
As for the restoration, It looks better than ever and shows no signs of editing issues again except that one here or there feeling different from what I remember as I watch but I haven’t seen the Weinstein version in 30 years. More familiar viewers will know them right away from 1993. They all felt like material to me that never should have been excised in the first place, because they all deepen rather than distract. It took 30 years but if this version brings “Farewell My Concubine” to new audiences, then it was worth every one of them.
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