| Shanghai Triad |
 |
| Directed by |
Zhang Yimou |
| Produced by |
Yves Marmion
Jean-Louis Piel
Wu Yigong |
| Written by |
Bi Feiyu
Novel:
Li Xiao |
| Starring |
Gong Li
Li Baotian
Wang Xiaoxiao |
| Music by |
Zhang Guangtian |
| Cinematography |
Lü Yue |
| Editing by |
Du Yuan |
| Distributed by |
United States:
Sony Pictures Classics |
| Release date(s) |
Cannes:
May 1995
United States:
22 December 1995 |
| Running time |
103 minutes |
| Country |
China |
| Language |
Mandarin |
Shanghai Triad (simplified Chinese: 摇啊摇，摇到外婆桥; traditional Chinese: 摇呀摇，摇到外婆橋; pinyin: yáo a yáo, yáo dào wàipó qiáo) is a 1995 Chinese film, directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Gong Li. The film is set in the criminal underworld of 1930s Shanghai and spans seven days. The Shanghai Triad's Chinese title roughly translates as "Row the boat to Grandma Bridge" and is based on a traditional Chinese lullaby.[1]
The film was the last collaboration between Zhang Yimou and actress Gong Li in the 1990s, thus ending a successful partnership that had begun with Zhang's debut, Red Sorghum, and had evolved into a romantic relationship as well. With the wrapping of filming for Shanghai Triad the two agreed to end their relationship both professionally and personally.[2] Gong Li and Zhang Yimou would not work together again until 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower.
Plot
Shanghai Triad takes place over the course of seven days in the 1930s. The story begins as a fourteen-year-old boy, Tang Shuisheng (Wang Xiaoxiao) has just arrived in Shanghai from the countryside. He is met at the docks by his uncle, Liu, who has sent for Shuisheng to work as a servant for a Triad Boss (played by Li Baotian), also named Tang and a distant relative. Before he meets his new employers, however, he is taken to a warehouse where two rival groups of Triads carry out an opium deal that goes wrong, leaving one of the rival members dead. Shuisheng is then taken by his uncle to Tang's palatial home, where he is assigned to serve Xiao Jinbao (Gong Li),[3] a cabaret singer and girlfriend of the Boss. She mocks Shuisheng's upbringing and derides him as a "country bumpkin." It is soon learned that Jinbao is also carrying on an affair with the Boss's number two man, Song (Sun Chun).
On the third night, Shuisheng witnesses the aftermath of a bloody gang fight between the Boss and a rival boss, Fat Yu. Among the dead are Shuisheng's uncle. In response to this attack, the Boss and a small entourage, including Shuisheng and Jinbao, retreat to a peasants' island. There, Jinbao befriends Cuihau (Jiang Baoying), an unassuming peasant woman who prepares meals for the visitors, while Shuisheng befriends Ajiao (Yang Qianguan), Cuihau's nine-year-old daughter. When Jinbao unwittingly meddles with Cuihua's business, it results in the Boss's men killing Cuihua's lover from a neighboring island. Furious, Jinbao confronts the Boss, who throws her accusations back at her, claiming that had she never meddled, he and his men would have been none the wiser. Jinbao, at this point, reveals to Shuisheng that she, too, came from the countryside. She gives him some silver coins and tells him to start a shop as soon as he is able, away from Shanghai and its depravity.
By the seventh day, Song arrives to the island along with Zheng (Fu Biao), the Boss's number three man. During a mahjong game, the Boss calmly confronts Song with evidence of his treachery. He tells Song that he knew of the younger man's affair with Jinbao and of the fact that Song had been working with Fat Yu to supplant him as king of the Shanghai underworld. The gang kills Song's men and buries Song alive. The Boss then informs Jinbao that she will have to die as well for her role in Song's betrayal. He grants her one last wish in accordance to the "rules," and she asks that he leave Cuihua and Ajiao alone. The Boss goes back on his word and tells her that Cuihua has already been killed for knowing too much, while Ajiao will be taken to Shanghai with him (saying she will be the new Jinbao when she is older). As Shuisheng attempts to save his mistress from her fate, he is thrown back and beaten. The film then ends with Shuisheng tied to the sails of the ship as it sails back to Shanghai with the boss and Ajiao on board.
Cast
- Wang Xiaoxiao as Tang Shuisheng, the young teenage boy who serves as the film's protagonist. Shuisheng has recently come under the care of his uncle Liu when he falls under the spell of the boss's mistress, Jinbao.
- Gong Li as Xiao Jinbao, a country girl-turned-Shanghai nightclub singer, Jinbao is the mistress of the Triad Boss.
- Li Xuejian as Uncle Liu, a low-level servant to a Triad organization and Tang Shuisheng's uncle who has called him to Shanghai. Uncle Liu tries to show Shuisheng how to properly serve the Boss and his minions, but he meets an untimely end at the hand of one of the Boss's primary rivals only days after Shuisheng's arrival.
- Li Baotian as Tang the Triad Boss, seemingly sophisticated and soft-spoken, the Boss hides a ruthless side.
- Sun Chun as Song, the Boss's ambitious number two man, Song's affair with Jinbao sets up the film's main conflict.
- Fu Biao as Zheng, the Boss's number three man.
- Yang Qianguan as Ajiao, a young girl living on the secluded island with her mother; she serves to remind Jinbao of her own youth.
- Jiang Baoying as Cuihao, Ajiao's mother, a peasant woman who prepares meals for the Boss while he is hiding on his island estate.
Production
Shanghai Triad was director Zhang Yimou's seventh feature film. Zhang's previous film, To Live had landed the director in trouble with Chinese authorities, and he was temporarily banned from making any films funded from overseas sources.[1] Shanghai Triad was therefore only allowed to continue production after it was officially categorized as local production. The director has since noted that his selection of Shanghai Triad to follow up the politically controversial To Live was no accident, as he hoped that a "gangster movie" would be a conventional film.[4]
The film was originally intended to be a straight adaptation of the novel Gang Law by author Li Xiao. This plan eventually changed with Gong Li's character becoming more important and the story's viewpoint shifting to that of the young boy, Tang Shuisheng. As a result the film's title was changed to reflect its new "younger" perspective.[1]
Reception
Though perhaps less well known than some of Zhang Yimou's more celebrated films (notably Ju Dou, To Live and Raise the Red Lantern), Shanghai Triad was nevertheless generally praised by critics upon its release, with an 85% "fresh" rating on the review-database, Rotten Tomatoes. With its headline position in the New York Film Festival, The New York Times' critic Janet Maslin opened her review that despite the cliched genre of the "gangster film," Shanghai Triad nevertheless "movingly affirms the magnitude of [Zhang Yimou's] storytelling power."[4] Derek Elley of the entertainment magazine Variety similarly found the film to be an achievement, particularly in how it played with genre conventions, calling the film a "stylized but gripping portrait of mob power play and lifestyles in 1930 Shanghai."[1] Roger Ebert, however, provided a counterpoint to the film's praise, arguing that the choice of the boy as the film's main protagonist ultimately hurt the film, and that Shanghai Triad was probably "the last, and ... certainly the least, of the collaborations between the Chinese director Zhang Yimou and the gifted actress Gong Li" (though Gong would again work with Zhang in 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower).[2] Even Ebert however, conceded that the film's technical credits were well done, calling Zhang one of the "best visual stylists of current cinema."[2]
Awards and nominations
DVD release
Shanghai Triad was released on December 12, 2000 in the United States on region 1 DVD by Sony Pictures' Columbia Tristar label.[6] The DVD edition includes English and Spanish subtitles. The DVD is in the widescreen letterbox format with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1.
See also
- Triads — Chinese underground societies that play a major part of the film
References
External links
