*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*
Pete Wright
This is The Next Reel, everybody. I’m Pete Wright and that there is Andy Nelson.
Andy Nelson
Hey, hey, hey!
Pete Wright
And we spoil movies. Tonight on the show, we’re kicking off our Zhang Yimou series with his 1990s story of Love and tie-dye, Ju Dou. Before we get into that, you should learn more about us at thenextreel.com, subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast app, or join us on YouTube. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook at The Next Reel. And if you’ve ever had that one uncle that you thought you might like to stuff in a bucket, then you’re just the kind of person we welcome to The Next Reel’s Instagram #GuessTheMovieChallenge.
Andy Nelson
And with that, let’s see if we can pull Gamesmaster Steven Smart away from his game of Dunk Uncle in the Blue Dye so we can find out who won this week.
Steven Smart
Hey guys. This week’s movie was Hedwig and the Angry Inch from 2001. Directed, written and starring John Cameron Mitchell. Congrats to first-time winner Tom Tarn who guessed it on Image 1. As always, uh new challenge starts on Monday. So thanks guys and see you later.
Pete Wright
We got a Blott Spot. Uh our friend of the show, Ben Lott, has written in with his rebound on the Danish girl and Andy I feel like I’m an island.
Andy Nelson
We’re an island, buddy. He says, “I have so many problems with the storytelling in The Danish girl It starts feeling simply like Einar has a fetish for women’s clothes, then it is played almost like a split personality disorder. It’s all the things I imagine transgender people would hate to portray their lifestyle. But more than anything, I hate that Lily is presented as one of the most selfish human beings in the world. She seems to have zero care for Gerda, no sympathy, and won’t even listen to sound advice. Not a movie I ever want to watch again Your rank 266, my rank 267.”
Pete Wright
Now we’re only one apart, and yet it feels like a continent.
Andy Nelson
An ocean in that one.
Pete Wright
An ocean lies between us. I did I feel like we ended in the same place, but how we got there is definitely different. And y you know, to his credit, I think it’s hard to go in not liking some of these actors and their portrayal and then really find an affinity for the movie naturally. And I went in really, you know, rooting for them. So I think I it you know, I was a little bit more easy on the film overall, even though it didn’t clear our hurdle and it didn’t f you know f uh work well in our ranking. But he then Ben came back and shared a an article by a trans uh woman who um you know made a vociferous case uh against uh against the film. And so, you know, as much as I try to say, well, I don’t want to judge because I don’t really hang out in these communities, as soon as I’m faced with a resource from the community that says this movie sucks, I kind of have to say, okay, maybe it doesn’t do a good job representing the community. I still I still found things to like about it.
Andy Nelson
Well I just wonder, is it representing the community or is it just that one person’s opinion? I you know, I just I just don’t know. I didn’t look at the article, so I’m not quite sure exactly uh exactly how it’s portrayed, but um Uh you know, i it also was a different time and I think that there’s something to be said for that. I mean, this was a story that took place, you know what, like eighty years ago.
Pete Wright
Yeah, I agree. All right. Anyway, Andy, it’s time. Let’s do trailers.
Andy Nelson
My trailer this week is for an animated film that’s actually nominated for um Uh for an Oscar this year is called My Life as a Zucchini. It’s a Swiss film. Um and it’s it’s got this really It’s it’s a stop motion animation film and it’s just got this really just kind of adorable design. Everything looks kind of quirky and fun. And I think what um instantly sold me on this uh this film is just looking at the character design for all these different characters, it looks like something that like I would have drawn as a kid. Like the way that the color, you know, the just body parts or might be different colors, like their nose might be a certain color or whatever. It doesn’t really make any sense. But it’s it felt very childlike. And That really kind of brought me back to uh to my youth when I watched this trailer. And I also felt like there’s this there’s this hint of uh a moonlight kingdom sort of thing, of this coming of age sort of thing that I really drew from this trailer. You’ve got this little boy whose parents have died and he’s put in a foster home and you know you’ve got basically it’s kind of a life in the foster home sort of movie, but a girl is brought in there And he and this girl kind of there’s this interesting connection that they start forming and I don’t know, I just really enjoyed these characters and I enjoyed the sense of the um viewpoint, I think, is what uh probably the best way I could define it. of creating this world in a way that it feels like it’s from a kid’s perspective. So I really enjoyed uh watching this trailer and I really am excited about the movie. What did you think?
Pete Wright
I um I was entranced uh by it. I thought it was beautiful and to your point, you know, I mean I you first see the characters and they really do look like they’ve just been scrapped out of kind of remains on the play-doh table. And then you look at their eyes and the way their eyes move. And like I find my joy in the characters emanates from their eyes out. And suddenly everything else became so much more believable because I think the eyes were just so perfect and charming Uh and i by the time we meet the girl, right, that his sort of love interest, his that ends up in their foster home, I find every one of these characters so touchingly beautiful, so charming that I’m really uh lost in them. I think the trailer was beautifully cut. It t told the story uh that I wanted to hear with these characters in just two minutes Uh and it really made me uh m interested to see it when it hits.
Andy Nelson
Claude Barras is the director of the film. It looks like co-wrote it. also and this is uh his first uh feature. Everything else that he’s done has been a variety of animated shorts. So I’m looking forward to seeing uh how this one uh comes together. It’s uh been having uh festival releases around the world, and then of course with the uh the big Oscar nomination that it got recently. Um it’s finally getting a limited release here in the United States. February 24th, so coming up right quick, uh followed by um uh Serbia, Japan, Norway, and the UK where it opens May 5th. So there you go.
Pete Wright
My trailer, Andy, I’m Just only in the last few minutes have I stumbled into a puzzle that I can’t answer. So I’m just gonna tell you about the trailer and then leave you with the mystery while I try to unravel it. Um so i the trailer is punching Henry. It is from Director Gregori Viens, uh and his uh he co wrote it with the star of the film Henry Phillips, uh he i it is the story of this hapless songwriter Henry Phillips. According to IMDB, he’s lured to LA when a veteran TV producer decides to make a show about the life of a loser. And I don’t know, you know, you have to be in a in a place when you see trailers, and maybe I am just in a place of being really open to stories about creators who are uh you know, who are kind of punched down upon. And this is the story of that guy. Everybody who he runs into is i somehow insulting him is um, you know, treating him as less than until he comes, it sounds like, across Sarah Silverman, uh, who actually finds uh that she is entranced by his story. Um I think Henry Phillips plays a uh he a r really charming hapless guy. Uh his jokes aren’t that funny. Uh and uh that makes the uh the story itself that much more heartwarming. Also stars Tig Notaro, J. K. Simmons, Mark Cohen. uh Eileen Ratner, Mike Judge, Jim Jeffries. Uh and uh the cast looks great. Um the mystery is that Gregori Viens Vaines also did a film called Punching the Clown in 2009, winner of the Audience Award at the Slam Dance Film Festival. a realistic comedy that tells the story of Henry Phillips, a hapless modern-day troubadour who grinds his way through the It’s it is I don’t know if it’s a prequel, I don’t know if it’s somehow related. Uh it sounds i it sounds like a another Henry Phillips who plays a different kind of music and now uh is dealing with the same story. I mean he goes to LA, he’s trying to shake things up in his life and look for luck in new places and It’s it’s a very strange mystery. I don’t know what the relationship of these movies uh is. I don’t know. How did the trailer hit you?
Andy Nelson
Yeah, I loved it. I loved watching the trailer. I love these characters uh in it. I mean Sarah Silverman I’m always hesitant with. Um but every now and then she pops up in something that I’m okay with and this was one of those things. Plus it just got JK Simmons and Tig Notaro is just I think one of the funniest women out there right now. Her stand-up comedy. It just uh it just kills me. just the whole sense of it I really enjoy and I’m I’m curious to see uh I’m just curious to see kind of how this movie unfolds. And like you, I started looking at this whole mystery of punching the clown mainly because this one it’s titled Punching Henry and then it says original title and punching the clown.
Pete Wright
Punching the clown, right
Andy Nelson
So it’s like did they just get more money and remake their movie?
Pete Wright
I can’t figure it out either. The original movie’s an hour thirty-one minutes, this movie’s an hour and thirty-eight. What’s going on? I don’t know. It’s weird. It makes me want to see them both. Uh uh this one I’m gonna have to wait for, although it has been floating around for uh for uh some time. It opened at South by Southwest. uh March 13th, 2016, and uh San Diego Film Festival uh September 30th, 2016. It looks like it’s hitting digital and some limited release on February 21st. Excellent. You remember, Andy?
Trailer
I watched you through that hole in the wall? She was a wife. A lover. An erotic mystery who awakened the cruelty of an old man’s desires and stirred the secret dreams in a young man’s desire.
Pete Wright
Ju Dou, Andy 1990, film from uh Zhengy Mub and Yang Fengliang Mostly Zhang Li Mu, uh written by Liu Heng, uh, stars Gong Li, the longtime collaborator after this film, uh plain the title role uh also uh stars uh Li Baotian and Li Wei, uh and it’s a pretty small cast. The whole thing really sorta just revolves around uh this uh set of characters. Uh how did this first in our Zhang Yimou series hit you?
Andy Nelson
Well I’m curious because I have seen this before, although it’s been um uh probably uh twenty five years since I’ve seen this film. So quite a while. So I but you had not seen this before, right? I had not. This was that is true. This was a first. So I’m curious I’m curious how it hit you.
Pete Wright
I’m conflicted about the film, honestly. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it uh visually. I thought it was uh really stunning. Use of color was stunning. I love the just d the general production design and the cinematography you can tell uh you know Zhang Yimou Mu ‘s training and career as a cinematographer just shines, right? His placement of the camera was uh it felt very modern and contemporary, not like a film that’s you know 27 years old. Uh and so I really like that. I found the story itself was really compelling. I r deeply enjoyed um the very strange relationship dynamic. uh between these three major characters. It was diabolical, right? It was just twisted and it was wrapped up in culture and mores and constraints. Uh and it was kind of exactly what I expected from this period uh film from China. Like this is what I this is kind of what I expect, a tale of oppression and loyalty and retribution and family and mess, just all wrapped up into one. Uh I found myself losing it a little bit when um some of the um I don’t even know if this is gonna be a fair word, Andy, but Uh all I can say is directorial choice choices that lead to overacting. How’s that? Is that too much? There are scenes where characters characters who don’t need to do so end up like throwing themselves downstairs and climbing downstairs by their hands and it just it those kinds of things like take me out of the Take me out of the film a little bit and I end up questioning some of those choices. But um so it’s one of those films that I w was able to Uh watch straight through and I just finished it. Like we were recording this show. I mean I just finished it probably three hours ago and I was able to watch the entire thing through and then watch a couple of scenes over again that I thought were particularly powerful. And so it’s it’s pretty fresh. I can say my overall opinion is strong. I really enjoyed this as kind of the earliest thing that I’ve seen of Zhang Yimou’s and I love the connective sort of tissue the thematic tissue that you can sort of that I could at least feel in this film that I remember from some of his later films that I’ve already seen. So I don’t know how did it hold up after twenty-five years.
Andy Nelson
You know, I really enjoyed it still. I mean I didn’t love it as much. I feel like when I first saw it, I was really taken by it. Um it could have been that I was just so bitter watching it this go around that the picture quality was such garbage. Because um uh and we’ll talk about this uh later uh getting into cinematography, but I mean it’s a beautiful, beautiful film. The colors are just sumptuous. I mean it really just radiates beauty. Um unfortunately the DVD transfers that it has had here in the States are all just really piss poor And it’s just such a shame and it’s so frustrating because I feel like when I watched it, I think everything that I saw back in that in my it was an international cinema class that I saw this in um and I’m pretty sure everything was on sixteen millimeters. So I’m assuming it was a much better looking print. That’s just an assumption. Um I want to believe. So but um it’s just it’s so frustrating. And so I um That kind of just bothered me. The quality just wasn’t there to watch. But um I still really enjoyed the story. I didn’t love it as much as I r felt I loved it the first time. But I found so much compelling stuff to watch in it and the characters were so interesting. The look, the way that uh that Zhang Yimou shot the film. Everything was just um really I really enjoyed. It was um a just a fascinating uh look at um his uh his story that he tells here of like nineteen twenties China. And you know, I the characters I found so interesting. And I think what I find so interesting in films like this is some of the tradition and the way that society ran back then. I mean, you’ve got Right at the beginning we learned that this uh our antagonist, um as he i is called often uncle or Jinshan, um, he is um he buys this woman to be his third wife and the other two before her basically he um abused until they died um because he really wants an heir to his uh to his uh little die factory that he has. Seeing kind of the tradition with uh the you know the way that you can buy a woman and she has no rights and I mean essentially it’s it’s you know indentured servitude it’s just terrible. Um uh and then just all the strange other things that go along, like when they f there’s finally a baby in the film and they go through this naming convention and how the whole all the like the village elders come together and they go through this sheet that they have where they like track all the names that have been given to this generation and they’ve gotta find just the right name for the kid. It’s like what a weird thing. And when uh when he dies and they have to like s try to stop them from carrying him to his grave like forty nine times. It’s it’s so strange. And so I really enjoy all of those little elements and being introduced to this whole world and in that world and seeing the confines that it creates, watching these uh these m principal um protagonists, Ju Dou and uh Tianqing, uh I think I’m saying it somewhat right as they um struggle with their relationship. So i it’s it’s a beautifully touching film. I really enjoyed watching it this go-round.
Pete Wright
I don’t think I’ve in internalized a couple of things. As I was reading up on the film, I stumbled on this book, you know, that I think I’ve run into before when we’ve talked about some other, you know, Asian cinemas, uh Ma Shang Mei’s. uh book Asian Diaspora and East-West Modernity. And one of the criticisms that this levels at Zhang Yimou Mu is that uh that he is directly catering to a global cinema eager for tales of exoticism from the primitive Orient, right? That this was that ultimately your uh claim that you really like those elements like the blockage of the of the casket and the naming convention ceremony. uh is an indicator that you as a westerner have just been played. So I don’t know I don’t know what to make of that. Like it’s a historical uh feature. So I’m trying to figure out in my head, I’m trying to sort of rationalize why is that a Criticism of Zhang Yimou Mu making a period film uh in China by a Chinese scholar.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, it’s it’s strange. It’s like saying, um, oh, Westerners only like samurai films because of that exotic primitive uh nature. I don’t know. I think it’s it’s kinda silly. I mean you could say the same thing about watching uh films about King Arthur, um, or Vikings or here.
Pete Wright
I mean i you know i the old west typically the west, yeah absolutely. Why did we like uh Three Ten to Yuma or The Magnificent Seven or you know, whatever. Um, you know, it feels like are is that are we exporting a hyper westernization, a view of the West to the uh a global appetite for Um, you know, the exotic American West.
Andy Nelson
But see, that’s the thing. It’s like if it sells, if people are interested in it, what’s wrong with that? It’s you know, you’re you’re telling a story in a particular time. Uh th why should there be anything wrong with doing that and catering, you know, putting your story in a world? I mean it’s no different than doing a steampunk story or a Dinosaur story or a sci-fi story.
Pete Wright
Okay, so uh you know, maybe can you look at the same thing in a in a film like City of God, which is obviously it’s it’s only m you know it’s fairly modern, uh a contemporary film, but could you take a film. It is the criticism that you could tell the same story in the same place without these specific elements that are hyper-orientalized, right? You could take out the ceremony about the 49 um the you know blocking the uh processional 49 times you could take out the naming ceremony that is particularly exquisitely uh oriental And I’m saying that in big air quotes, right? The stereotype. And uh could you tell the same story and would it would it detract from Ju Dou as a as a cinematic experience? I that’s That’s my sense of the criticism that is levied by Ma here and I just found it really interesting that I don’t know. I haven’t really in internalized that on this film yet.
Andy Nelson
I guess my sense of it is uh you know, when when a filmmaker is telling a story, I mean, they want to draw details from the period into the story to uh to give their uh their tail more depth and t to uh uh weave more layers into it. And I uh I don’t know. I kind of think that it’s uh a bunk theory if uh if a filmmaker um is going to do that. And I mean why I don’t know. I guess it just I don’t see why uh why they would have to limit themselves to not depicting some of that stuff. I mean it’s really interesting stuff and I don’t know why um uh a filmmaker would have to limit what they can depict of a culture for fear that all of a sudden, oh, now we’re just exoticizing um uh these elements of our culture to draw more people to it. I don’t know, it just it seems kind of silly to me
Pete Wright
I you know and
Andy Nelson
I just like the details. I mean I think it’s fascinating details that I w didn’t know. And I think that other people could find, you know, weird US customs just as fascinating. It’s just or you know, or customs from uh you know, people down the block or, you know, uh people who, you know, do something you know, practice a different religion or something.
Pete Wright
Well, i there you go. I mean it’s broad cultural strokes that I think is more of a criticism and not the you know, like, hey, let’s go to Andy’s house and make fun of how he eats. You know? Uh but don’t don’t worry because we’re gonna we’re gonna come back to this uh because Ma has some equally uh um interesting critiques of Raise the Red Lantern, which we’re gonna be talking about. uh next week. So I it’s it’s uh we are talking about that next week, right? Did I just lie? Yes. Okay. No, you’re you’re right. Uh i so i it is a really interesting thing and it’s a thing that I find myself increasingly observant of like what you how how do we are we making the right case here? A case for history? Or a case for satisfying a um market appetite at the expense of potential sort of authenticity to the culture. I don’t know, but I found it a really interesting thing.
Andy Nelson
It’s going to be an interesting thing to continue talking about as we continue looking at Zhang Yimou ‘s uh career. and looking at some of the choices uh that he’s made as he’s gone forward, whether it’s the Wu-Sha and kind of the that uh crouching tiger sort of sword fighting sort of stuff or you know the Great Wall and what he’s doing there. So that would be interesting to see.
Pete Wright
Not to not to lob a spoiler, but if that critique can be levied at Ju Dou, uh my goodness, what can you say about it uh in the wall? I mean you want to talk about hyper-orientalization, the trailer itself is a uh hyper-orientalized uh catering uh you know example of catering to global cinema eager for tales of exoticism from the primitive orient. That’s what the movie is about It’s practically its IMDB description. Uh anyway, uh let’s talk about these characters though. I think you have a good point about these three characters and their relationship. to um you know the story.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, uh you’ve got these three uh really interesting characters. Uh Ju Dou is the wife that uh that is purchased by Jinshan. who owns this uh this dye factory and his nephew uh Tianqing I know I’m just gonna be saying all these names wrong. this whole series. Um he is the he’s his nephew, but it’s not really by blood. He was taken in and um and he’s been kind of raised as the son, but as he says no son of mine would be so stupid. You know, he’s he’s a terrible person, this Jinshan. I mean he’s a just an awful, awful person. And uh but it’s interesting because this film, I mean, you read about it and a lot of people pull a lot of allegories out of it about how um uh Zhang was kind of looking at um i mean it takes place in the in the twenties and they’re looking at kind of men in power and the anti feudal views of the twenties. But At the same time, you can also read this allegory for uh for the communism that was going on in the 80s and kind of the anti-communist views that Zhang Yimou likely had. Um and then somebody else I read was anti -Confucian. And so all of these different um allegories that you can see and just how these lives are stifled by the rules of these rigid customs. And you get this r this really incredible sense of oppression. I mean, certainly uh from Ju Dou herself, being a woman in this society and having to be sold, so you know, I’m sure is like she’s probably from a poor Farm family who needed the money and they sell her to this guy to get some money and that’s uh that’s kind of her lot in life And the way that she kind of plays with her power that she kind of finally draws, I thought was really interesting. But just speaking to the oppression, you know, then you also have. . uh the uh the uncle and the nephew who also are kind of stuck in this oppressive society. I mean the nephew is so oppressed that I mean he has plenty of times to even uh k kill his uncle, like throw him off a cliff or um or, you know, leave him somewhere or, you know, uh and he keeps r r deciding to save his uncle and he keeps c sticking with things. because he’s just kind of so um passive about it and afraid to step out of the norm. And then of course the you know, the uncle who’s just I mean he’s just kind of built into this system. So I guess his oppression He’s willingly gone along with it and is just now a part of the system. So interesting, interesting trio.
Pete Wright
I think it really is. And I to me it I you know, any story of oppression ends up being kind of a story of retribution or vengeance for that oppression in some way. And I think the uncle, you know, or uncle He’s he is uh i uh s the way he acts out is uh almost in direct response to his inability to, you know, do the thing that a man is supposed to do, in and that is to breed a son. Right. He it turns out he’s impotent and uh he can’t do the one thing that he really needs to do. And so, um he’s you know, the his story in this film is just about the fall of you know, the stereotype of man and uh at the same time you look at the way the nephew behaves toward him and how their stories sort of the the demand curve crosses halfway through the film and it becomes a story of you know the nephew getting uh you know, in a sense, vengeance. Like I found myself kind of wondering why is he is he keeping him alive? What is the story that he wants to w th the narrative that he needs to play out and that he needs uncle to watch. Um I found that a sort of a puzzling thing in a very good way. Like I wanted to see more of that. I wanted to learn what he, you know, what he needed to what demons he was trying to exercise uh in how he was treating uncle.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, it was it was very interesting watching this decision that uh that he had time after time to kind of keep saving his uncle. Um it you know, I mean he after his spill when uh when Uncle is coming back from uh selling silk and he finds him on the side of the road and he’s like had a stroke and he’s got this opportunity to kind of drop him off a cliff, but he doesn’t and then um then he’s in this wheelchair or this kind of barrel wheelchair and uh it’s like there’s there are always these opportunities to kind of uh kind of leave him and it’s uh it’s uh really kind of by pure accident that th that uncle ends up you know falling uh because of the son into this um into this uh vat of die and drowning. And it’s uh but even then it’s like they’re still not freed by him. It’s so it’s it’s an interesting way that the story unfolds. And that’s something I really loved about the screenplay. was how I never knew where it was going. I totally was surprised that the reveal of the fact that uh Ju Dou and um uh the nephew are having this affair is revealed as the midpoint of the film.
Pete Wright
That feels like
Andy Nelson
Mac
Pete Wright
3, yeah.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, it totally feels like that’s gonna be part of the climax. And uh and even then you get the uncle dying essentially as the uh leading us into the third act, and then really it’s it’s everything dealing with um with the sun uh as uh as we get to the end there. And so uh it was really interesting. Um I loved the script. It just it was always surprising
Pete Wright
That you didn’t know it’s really Star Wars. It’s the prequel, right? It’s a story of Anakin, pretty much. Can they find Anakin? Turns out it’s he’s already Darth Vader and he’s ten years old. Uh, the th the thing that I think is most interesting about that transition is that, you know, once you realize that the secret is out and that it comes so early, the entire story, the frame of the entire story changed for me and it became not the story about oppression and you know, the secrets, but the story of family and loyalty and the film as a commentary on the things that we do uh to um to s in service of loyalty to an ideology, right? In this case, it’s it’s to family, um, but it is also so the the price we pay uh for the ideologies we serve. And I thought that was that was really interesting and ended up sort for me kind of justifying, starting to justify the choices that nephew and in fact Ju Dou uh also make and we can’t underscore enough Ju Dou ‘s role in um as an agent of vengeance right she is not an idle participant here she takes a very uh sort of active and enraged role in her own um sort of advocacy against uncle.
Andy Nelson
And really it’s only because uh because of the nephew’s um the persistence to stop her that she doesn’t really follow through, but she seems ready to fall I mean, she’s got the arsenic and she’s like ready to kill him. You know, she’s She wants it out she wants him out of the way. And it’s it’s interesting how um how tortured they are and uh what really uh struck me is how it almost is even worse after the uncle dies. Um when they kind of say, well you can’t live with your aunt anymore because uh that’s just weird. And um they kind of force him out. And so now the two of them don’t even get to be under the same roof. They have to go kind of sneak off and meet way out in the in some little you know, uh h hole in the ground so they can uh, you know, continue their tryst. It’s it’s just tragic how this uh this the period that they’re in just restricts so much about them and this fear of being discovered and this fear of gossip and all of that really kind of leads to this uh um this secret relationship which only fuels the sun ‘s uh fire really and uh because the f the sun uh i it’s it’s an interesting character. I never really understand if the son fully understands that this is his mom and dad and he’s just angry at them, or if he really thinks that he was Uncle’s son and that his brother and mother are having this affair and he’s just really upset about the whole thing and wants to uh wants to end them. I never quite get it, but he’s he’s such a frightening character.
Pete Wright
Yeah, God, he’s so creepy. Is that a weakness in the film for you?
Andy Nelson
No, not at all. I love the opportunity that it’s not spelled out and I get to kind of think about that and I uh I get to kind of play around with uh, you know, what what does that mean and what is going through this Quiet son’s head. Um and uh I mean because he does call uncle, he does call him daddy, and that’s you know, his he finally speaks and that’s what he says. And so I it’s almost like If he does understand it, it’s almost like he willingly goes along with it. And that’s something that I read about in uh I think it was actually Ebert who was talking about um some of these allegor allegorical reads that you can get from this film and how um if uh if um uncle is kind of representative of kind of the communist China and the m the or the Maoist China that the Sun is kind of the uh the silent red guard. And they kinda and just kind of doing whatever um his father says. So it’s an interesting way to read it. I don’t know if I If I see it that way, but at the same time I’m like, it’s it’s an interesting way to depict it because the son just kind of willingly kind of goes along with everything that his dad says. But even then, i you know, there’s just this kind of this level of danger with him. Like uncle falls into the die and he just stands there and laughs and I mean, I know he’s really young and doesn’t understand what’s going on, but still.
Pete Wright
Yeah, it’s super creepy. Super weird. I question and I you know that’s the thing that I’m muscling through too is this you know you can’t really win with him. Like who is he defending? Whose ideology is he defending, right? The uncle dies and we know that he was coming as uh some sort of a of a defense mechanism for his uncle. He had this kind of relationship with his uncle. The uncle is gone now, so now who is he defending? Is he defending the mom, the honor of the mom, the integrity of the mom? Uh or i is he is he still defending the integrity of the of the red state of the uncle, you know what I mean? Like um i I struggle with that a little bit to figure out what what is his role in, you know, protecting the identity of whatever it is that he’s protecting. Yeah. Um so I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know that there’s an answer, but man he is uh he’s creepy. He’s so creepy Oh my goodness.
Andy Nelson
Always watching.
Pete Wright
Always watching. Totally. Um do we do we want to talk about anything specific to uh Liu Heng uh the wrote the script or shall we have we kind of talked about everything we need to talk about there?
Andy Nelson
Uh the only thing I was gonna say about him is uh he is a Chinese writer and kind of a realist writer, and um I don’t really know anything about him at all other than This was based off of a novelette that he wrote in 1987 called Fuxi Fuxi, and he won the National Prize for Best Novelettes with that, and that became the basis for this film. So that’s that’s really all I was going to say about him.
Pete Wright
Well and we should we should probably note that in the in the book, um uh the uh relationship between um the i is incestuous Right. The relationship between the mom and the it’s a real uh I think it’s a real uncle nephew, I think. Nephew relationship. And in the movie Uh they didn’t want to deal with the incest relationship and so it’s an adopted nephew. And that’s when, you know you know, she decides that it’s okay to pursue this relationship because there’s no, you know, there’s no blood relationship there. I and so I don’t know how much of a difference that makes, but it’s an interesting choice. Because the movie’s already weird enough as it is. You know, is it already weird enough so we don’t need incest, or is it already weird enough? Let’s throw in the incest. Right, right, right. I don’t know. You could go either way.
Andy Nelson
Well, I think uh I think to a certain extent, and I don’t know how um how uh Liu’s writing was received in China. Uh I mean obviously he won an award for his story, but Considering the struggle that Yu uh Zhang Yimou and uh Yang Fengliang had with uh the release of this film, um I it just makes me wonder if they had a decision, you know In order to get a better release, maybe we should leave the incest out. Yeah.
Pete Wright
Yeah, right. Well, ’cause it ended up I mean, this film as it was banned for, you know, a lot of years. Yeah. So Uh let ‘s talk about uh Zhang Yimou as a director.
Andy Nelson
Yeah. I don’t really think we need to speak much about Yang uh Feng Liang who Um from everything that I’ve read, I mean he’s listed as co-director, but um it seems to be general consensus that this is really Zhang Yimou ‘s film. Um and if you look at uh Yang’s listing, there’s really nothing else. So, um uh I mean I think that he was involved in uh codename Cougar with um Zhang Yimou the year before this, but uh and a few things after, but I don’t think it was anything that uh that there was Um probably worth discussing. So I don’t know the relationship between these two. I don’t know how Yang got uh co director credit, but it really Everything that I’ve always heard, this is really Zhanggy Mu ‘s film.
Pete Wright
It is um it is a lovely film and um much of that I think is just due to the way uh Zhang Yimou Mu understands the camera.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, I mean he is really kind of a uh director, producer, writer. He even acted in some stuff. And like you mentioned, he is a former cinematographer. So he really had an understanding of how to um put images on film and it’s incredibly clear here. Right from the start. I mean it just you get beautiful colors and uh he just can s keeps this intense color palette up. through uh the whole film and through his whole career, really has. Um I also love the lengthy shots that he has, some just really beautifully long shots as we kind of uh as he allows things to happen within the frame
Pete Wright
I love the way he shoots with the sun. I mean he uses the sun as such an incredible tool in this film. He doesn’t hide from it. He is not afraid to use really natural uh flair like sun flare in shot. He’s he loves uh you know using sun as a backdrop to wonderful silhouette. uh objects and people and uh I found that super engaging. It wasn’t just a one-time like treat. Uh this is a guy who will put the camera down low to get a dramatic angle on a backlit subject and it makes for better visual texture in the film. I was really moved by that.
Andy Nelson
Really a strong understanding of how to make images work. And I think that uh understands that there’s more uh in an image than just the pretty image. I think that he found ways to compose shots that uh I think also ended up just feeling like there was a lot of meaning behind those shots. So I really enjoyed that as well.
Pete Wright
You want to talk a little bit about the uh the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers? What does that mean?
Andy Nelson
Yeah, there’s this uh in Chinese cinema Um I don’t know if they’ve broken it down into just generations or what, but um there certainly is the what they call the fifth generation, and this was beginning in the mid to late eighties, um, this group of filmmakers who um really helped uh Chinese cinema start getting an and international uh presence. Um a lot of them graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in nineteen eighty two. It’s kind of a big chunk of them, including uh Zhang Yimou, along with uh let’s see if I can get these names. Well Chen Kaige, uh Zhang Junsao Tian Zhuang Zhuang and some others. The graduates consisted, I’m just gonna read this here. These graduates con constituted the first group of filmmakers to graduate since the Cultural Revolution And they soon jettisoned traditional methods of storytelling and opted for a more free and unorthodox approach. So I think that um uh you know, based on how Chinese cinema was before, this was you know an opportunity for some new up-and-comers basically to kind of find a uh a new way to tell their stories. And um Uh I think that what uh Zhang Yimou does here, um, I mean certainly of you know his film, this is his I believe it’s his second film after uh Red Sorghum. um gets banned. And uh I think that speaks to what people in China were expecting at the time out of their films and um kind of how uh um how these guys were pushing those limits. And sorry, this was his third film. Ju Dou is his third film.
Pete Wright
Oh right. He did uh he did kind of a thriller thing in there somewhere, right? Or did that come after?
Andy Nelson
Yeah He did. It was um codename Cougar, which uh he just completely dismisses as just uh you know his worst film and doesn’t like talking about it.
Pete Wright
Why ar why aren’t we doing that one? Sounds like a real hum dinger. Let’s do first shot, last shot.
Andy Nelson
Um speaking to first shot, um and and to what I was saying about the way that he composed his shots, uh the first shot is uh Tianqing. I’m just I’m never gonna be the name right. Chan Chan Chan Qalking his horse across a vast field of uh just yellow wheat. below these uh beautiful blue mountains. Um but it’s not just like this open, you know, uh old west shot of the hero coming into town. This is a very confined shot. And I love the way he shoots this. It’s a very long lens. He does a lot of long lens photography in landscapes to really compress everything. So uh nephew, I’m just gonna call him, is really kind of compressed in this landscape. And it’s this beautiful landscape with these beautiful yellow and blue colors. But there’s nothing open about it. You don’t really get outside of the mountains. You don’t get outside of it. And it’s just like he is squeezed in it. So that’s our first shot.
Pete Wright
And the last shot might as well have been Firestarter. It was great Uh it’s a freeze frame on this fire uh that Ju Dou has set. She’s burning the uh the silk mill, the dye factory down. uh uh along with herself in it and Tianqing and uh Tianbai we th we assume uh as the score kicks in and it’s a it is a traditional children’s song, the children singing the song. And it’s all it is also a bit of an homage to a to a song that we heard the kids singing uh in the village uh a little while um prior to this. So uh w we assume that this is the ultimate end uh as we see her. We have her uh sort of being uh transposed in and out of the flames right before we hit that still frame in the credits roll. Uh it’s Really grim.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, it’s a it’s a brutal way to end it. You know, we just as we as uh that’s it. We’re we’re out. So Uh it’s uh I like the way that it that we uh kick it off. It already feels like this is a beautiful society, but it’s also a very confining society. Um, I like that kind of read on it. Um and I you know, thematically I guess it leads to uh the destruction of these characters and demise and these two characters have kind of tried to find their own way out of this society and it’s led to um basically I guess a passionate relationship that uh has taken them to hell. So
Pete Wright
Yes, I agree with that. It’s like we tried. We tried to pay uh dues to the ideology. We tried to I mean f it It ends up, I think, also being something of a statement of the um of the uh again, the cultural revolution, right? It’s like we’re we we’re We’re a part of this. We’re not really crazy about it. And uh ultimately trying to do this thing you’re doing is gonna end in misery, one way or the other. And I you so that’s it’s pretty grim.
Andy Nelson
It is. Yes, it is.
Pete Wright
The cast is uh as we said in the beginning, it’s a it’s a small cast. Um uh we don’t uh we don’t know who did the casting. I should probably not even say that. Alright. It’s a small cast. We’ve got Gong Li uh is Ju Dou, the title character. This was the third film that they had done together. Ended up doing how many?
Andy Nelson
They did eight films together.
Pete Wright
And kinda funny that this uh this film is i is sorta the story of their lives.
Andy Nelson
Maybe not quite But um uh yeah, they did end up getting uh romantically involved later. But I mean they were involved they did uh eight films together. This was their third, so she her first leading role was actually in Red Sorghum, which he did um a few years before this one And then she was also in Codename Cougar. She was in This. She was in Raise the Red Lantern, which we’ll be talking about next week. Um, the story of Kyu Ju. Um was she in to live? I can’t remember. I know she was in Shanghai Triad. Shanghai Triad is when um they developed a romantic relationship, which ended during Shanghai Triad, and I don’t know if that kind of put a kiosk on them hanging out and working together or what, but they didn’t come back. and do anything else until 2006 ‘s Curse of the Golden Flower. So um but she’s she’s still a busy a busy little bee. I mean she’s just uh what was that movie that she just Did last year that I wanted to see cause it just looks crazy. It’s the Monkey King 2. That’s what it is.
Pete Wright
That’s right
Andy Nelson
Yeah, I think we talked about that trailer even. Yeah. Cause it just looks bonkers. Yeah. Yeah. W
Pete Wright
she was I you know, she was delightful in the film. I thought she um she we’ve already talked about just kind of the sensitivity that she brings to the role, but also the spirit of vengeance and I think she’s she uh she carries the weight of a really weighty role.
Andy Nelson
She yeah i in a in a story that I think um i is about a woman in the society that where she’s really um oppressed. Um, I think she does an incredibly powerful job, particularly the scene when she realizes that Tian Qing has been watching her through this hole. Um uh in as sh when she’s in the her changing room. She goes through these great emotions of hiding the hole and just being so disgusted with him. to all of a sudden having this moment where she decides to not cover up the hole and she goes back into the changing room and um decides I’m going to I’m going to do this and she takes off her clothes and part of it is to kind of reveal herself um uh naked before him. But the other part I think also was to just uh, you know, take power of her situation of being this victim of abuse and letting this other person in on what’s going on and see the damage that uncle has done to her body and just all of these bruises and just uh you know, just uh horrible um n you know things that he’s done. And it’s just I found that so powerful and so touching and um uh just heartbreaking when she does that. But also just I felt like uh there was there was a lot of strength to that character stuck in this situation. And I think that’s what Gong Li brings to the film. And that’s something that I’ve always felt with her when I watch her. And I really enjoyed um uh seeing her in this film
Pete Wright
I thought so too, and I y I think that sequence that you’re describing, th two points. First, it goes from sexual to non-sexual so quickly, right? Uh w it is sexual when he’s a peeping Tom and as soon as you get in the room, you’re looking through the hole and you see her as she’s just kind of frailly displaying herself and her wounds. uh it it turns on a dime and it turns for Tianqing too, which I think is really uh wonderfully played. But I think that sequence is made all the more uh m sort of heavy because they didn’t shy away from showing what Uncle was doing to her. Right. uh he’s you know putting essentially I it’s effectively waterboarding her, right? I mean he’s pouring like water or vodka or some sort of beverage wouldn’t be vodka on her face and as she’s, you know, gagged with a with a rag and it’s It is uh it’s horrible. And that’s how we open their relationship. That’s how we demonstrate who this man is, uh, so that when we actually see the wounds Uh it is a it’s it’s a it’s it’s heavy.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, it really is. It really just uh you know, breaks your heart And it puts you as the audience into an interesting place when later when Jinshan is uh is crippled and in his little wheelchair and they are kind of torturing him and moments like when they have this uh you know his uh Jinshan’s bedroom is upstairs and the only way to get him up is they now have rigged a pulley system and so uh Tianqing Qing will put him in this rope and pull him all the way up to the top floor Well, what he does when they uh when Uncle pisses them off is he basically lifts him up halfway and then ties the rope off and leaves him hanging there. That is so horrible. So I but I you know, he’s done such bad things and it it makes me as an audience member go, yeah, he deserves it. Oh, but you know, now I’m just as bad as he is, and it’s it’s it’s puts you in a really interesting place.
Pete Wright
You know, there the film is full of those kinds of things. Not to get us too sidetracked there, but the other sequence that I found really horrible was one of just sort of social torture when they’re all at the birthday party at the three-year-old uh birthday party of Tianbai. Uh w and they’re all laughing at Tianqing for, you know, not having a that he wants a wife and h uncle you know, he’ll have to make a lot of money and maybe buy one prettier than Ju Dou. And uh that is that strikes me as a it ‘s incredibly insensitive. uh sequence and uh almost as sort of uh gruesome socially as some of the other stuff that they portray that’s actually gruesome. uh in the way they treat one another. I thought it was ugh.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, interesting. It’s uh it’s a cultural thing.
Pete Wright
It was a very interesting right. Um so you want to talk about Li Wei as Jinshan? Uncle?
Andy Nelson
Yeah, I d I don’t know much about these actors other than this film. Uh Li Wei, I mean he had been acting, it looks like, at least according to IMDB, I’m guessing because he’s a Chinese actor that this is probably um thin. Um, but looks like he’d been acting since the forties and it looks like this was his last film. Um I guess he retired and then uh ended up passing away and in uh two thousand five. Um but um boy does he play the baddie well.
Pete Wright
Oh. Yeah, he’s he’s terrible. He’s also a terrible uh he’d be a terrible boss you know across cultures, right? I mean he s he comes off as kind of a cross cultural monopoly guy, right? The nineteen twenties uh um you know roaring twenties businessman uh you know fleecing the poor uh in order to you know get a shiny gold monocle That’s that’s who I feel like this would be if you took him out of his village where he runs his little dye shop and put him in, you know, New York, uh he would he would move right across.
Andy Nelson
Totally. He’s totally that guy.
Pete Wright
Uh and uh do you I mean do you want to go in do you have anything to say about Li Baotian or uh Zhengjian?
Andy Nelson
The only other thing I was gonna say about um Li Baotian is that he is in Shanghai Triad. another film where that uh he uh reunites with Gong Li. And so um I’ve never seen that one. There are a number of uh Zhang Yimou films that I have missed. Um but it does make me want to kind of go back and see that one now.
Pete Wright
It was we talked about it was uh you know banned for a long time.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, I think a lot of it was uh you know this uh I think the people in China, uh the authorities, uh, did not like the allegorical nature of this and that uh it seemed that Zhang Yimou was uh you know saying, hey, this these rigid customs that we have are bad And uh so, you know, bec uh not to mention the fact that there was probably more brazen sexuality in this film. than they had been used to at the time. Um and even just some of the uh the ways that he portrayed that, you know, when they s first start um uh having their sexual encounter and they knock that stick that’s holding the kind of the wheel and you get that really incredible shot of that red, that huge I mean these bolts of cloth are so long and you get it just unspooling and it’s just it is kind of like lumping onto the ground like this kind of uh fleshy red flower. It’s just like it said a lot. It kind of says a lot. And so, you know, I can see why maybe, you know, a country that was not used to this sort of filmmaking uh might say, you know what, we don’t want this to be shown here.
Pete Wright
That is brazen cloth.
Andy Nelson
Yes it was. Yes it was. Oh my. Uh
Pete Wright
cinematography. This is a thing of note, right? How they actually shot this film. This is a thing to note that makes this film more special.
Andy Nelson
Absolutely. Yeah, Gu Changwei and Yang Lun uh were the two cinematographers uh credited for this film. Um they shot this film in three strip technicolor and that is uh what is so amazing about this uh this production According to Roger Ebert, uh when the Technicolor Company abandoned its uh the three-step strip technicolor process And uh um what they did is they had they had three factories. They closed two of them down, and apparently the third factory they packed up and sold it to China. And I don’t know what it was that uh you know gave uh Zhang Yimou the idea to hey shoot this in three-step strip Technicolor, but he did. And um when you see these bolts of cloth and the just the this the powerful strength of the colors that he uses, the reds, the blues, the yellows. Everything is just so intense. You can only imagine how gorgeous this film must look on like a beautiful print of it. Unfortunately, it just has never given been given the treatment. I mean, geez, if there’s ever a film that needs a nice criterion remastering, it’s this one.
Pete Wright
Gotta wonder why that hasn’t happened yet.
Andy Nelson
I know. I mean, I thought with the success of some of uh Zhang Yimou ‘s later films that uh they would start pushing some of these older films back out i through some of these specialty companies. And I mean the company that uh that has released the DVDs has just done a terrible job, like I said. I mean it’s not even in a you know a regular aspect ratio. It’s just like the four by three uh pan and scan version. So
Pete Wright
It you know, and it it’s hard to find. At least it was hard to find. Um I just got word that my library copy copy arrived today. Um so that’s good. Uh you were able to find your library copy. And we did put a link. I don’t know how long it’s gonna last, but if you want to watch the thing There’s a link in the show notes for a YouTube version that just cropped up. I don’t know why we didn’t find it before after searching YouTube for it, but it is the uh the subtitled version and it’s it’s pretty clean. Um and it’s the whole thing on YouTube. So uh you can check it out. It’s the pan and scan version that we watched, but um but at least you can get through it. It is a beautiful film
Andy Nelson
Definitely. Definitely.
Pete Wright
Production design, the these colors are fantastic. And I didn’t notice it until I read this note.
Andy Nelson
This is one thing that I do remember talking about. way back in my international cinema class when we were talking about this film is the use of colors and thematically what uh Zhang Yimou Zhang Yimou might have meant with each of them and how uh in this blog that I found they start talking about it. This is from the Politics and Film blog, the vibrant deep red for lust and passion, or blood and death, the bright yellow for moments of realization and stark insight, and the soothing blue for those of stillness and compromise Um I’m when when the film starts, uh and she’s brought to this place as uh as nephew is comes home everything is in yellows and that’s when he kind of first meets her and everything before everything starts turning red and then when Uncle dies everything’s kind of turning blue and they change throughout the film and then when we get to the ending it’s back to these reds and then of course everything goes up in flame. It’s really interesting the way that they kind of play with the colors as ways to kind of symbolize what uh what might be happening in here.
Pete Wright
I loved how the colors um sort of transition to the characters, right? Be depending on what they die, uh the those colors stay on their hands and on their skin and almost get carried from scene to scene. And uh I want to watch it again uh with that in mind because I wonder if those if some of the color transitions on the characters are kind of leading indicators of what’s to come or what has just come. uh it it f feels m much more intentional uh than maybe I would have thought.
Andy Nelson
Well and when Uncle dies he drowns in the blue dye and his body when they fish him out. Like his clothes are just kind of that solid dark blue. It’s really uh interesting. And then for his funeral, I mean, they are just in complete white. Yeah. So it’s an interesting way to play with it.
Pete Wright
I feel like I don’t really know how this film did uh uh in a word season. Was it uh how was it considered when it was released
Andy Nelson
Well, considering the film was banned in China when it was first made, it really ended up getting rescued by its international discovery. And that’s really kind of what happened. I don’t know if it was some big uh Viridiana like sneaking it out of China sort of thing that they had to do, or if they had already kind of submitted it to the Cannes Film Festival. uh or what, but it did play at con. It ended up losing to Wild at Heart for the Palm Door, but it did get nominated for Palm Door. So it says a lot, and that really is where people first discovered it and it started really making kind of this uh this international splash. It got uh nominated for a number of other awards. Uh it won some other awards. And actually it ended up being the first uh Chinese film to ever get nominated for an Oscar. And it was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film it did lose to Journey of Hope, a Swiss film. But um but that’s kind of really what got Zhang Yimou on the map and got him uh the exposure that he needed to kind of keep his career I don’t know how things went in China if because it was banned if they were not gonna let him make any other films. Or um and then only because of the success of this particular film that they said, okay, you can make another one, but you better follow the rules this time. I’m not exactly sure how that how that all played out, but this is really kind of uh what uh I guess this ca it’s kind of what the fifth generation was all about. kind of introducing more Chinese cinema to a global audience. And this was a really big step in that direction.
Pete Wright
Uh Zhengy Mu is uh a controversial guy related to Chinese social policy. Uh lucky he’s also rich.
Andy Nelson
Right. Yeah, I was lucky that he’s uh directed and produced some pretty big films.
Pete Wright
Uh he was investigated for violating China’s one child policy. uh allegedly fathered seven children with four women. I think the only ones that he got caught uh against were were were three of them uh with one of his uh wives Uh and so he had to pay an unplanned birth and social maintenance fee of one point two million dollars.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, that’s a hefty fee. They’re serious. They really are.
Pete Wright
Um so how to do uh how to do in the numbers.
Andy Nelson
You know, um this is gonna be a tricky series, uh at least these first couple of films. Um I haven’t been able to find anything detailing how much uh it cost or how much it made, except here in the United States. Um The movie did have a limited two-screen release on Wednesday, March 6th, 1991, just before the hard way in New Jack City burst onto the screens, and then it expanded to about 39 screens in the US and went on to make one point uh almost two million dollars, just under two million, which is about three and a half million in today’s dollars. I wish that I had more, but I would like to think that at least the Oscar nomination uh did help it find more of an audience
Pete Wright
Go see it on YouTube and then send Zhang Yimou five bucks. I think it’s time, Andy. Let’s uh why don’t we head over and rank it? Let’s do it. Just swipe up in your podcast player of choice in the show notes you’ll find a link to Flickchart and that will take you straight to Ju Dou. in uh the Flickchart database. So you can add it to your own list of films. You can stack rank it right along with us and let’s see how it holds up. I’m I’m gonna bet, I’m gonna lay odds Andy that this will perform better than the Danish girl.
Andy Nelson
I would think so. I certainly hope so. Alright, first up we have Ju Dou or Mad Max, 1979.
Pete Wright
Well, I would still watch Mad Max first.
Andy Nelson
You would I uh I’m gonna say Ju Dou though, because man is it gorgeous to look at.
Pete Wright
Really hard.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, I just think there’s so much more I mean, don’t get me wrong, Mad Max I probably would watch Mad Max first. It’s a fun film But I just think looking at the uh the cinematic uh just the quality that Zhang Yimou infused with this uh into this film, I mean it just is it’s a gorgeous film. And it’s just a fascinating film to watch. So I enjoy both of these films quite a bit, but I’m gonna pick Ju Dou.
Pete Wright
Alright, I’m gonna give it to you.
Andy Nelson
Okay, next up we have Ju Dou. Or Fargo. Uh Little Cohen Brothers. I’m going with Fargo.
Pete Wright
Yeah, I’m gonna go with Fargo.
Andy Nelson
Ju Dou or The Wind Rises, Hayomiyazaki ‘s uh airplane animation.
Pete Wright
Oh, I adore The Wind Rises, but I’m gonna be Ju Dou on this one.
Andy Nelson
Ju Dou for me as well. Ju Dou or the outlaw Josie Wales.
Pete Wright
Speaking of hunger for the exotic West.
Andy Nelson
Right, exactly. Uh I think I’m gonna say Ju Dou still though.
Pete Wright
Yeah, I think I will too.
Andy Nelson
Ju Dou or never let me go, one of our speakeasy films.
Pete Wright
Probably Ju Dou. Unless you have a strong case to be made.
Andy Nelson
I don’t. I was just thinking about Andrew Garfield and some of the powerful moments that he has in that film, but I think I’m still Ju Dou. Yeah. Alright, Ju Dou or The Hurt Locker.
Pete Wright
Oh man, I’d probably say the Hurt Locker, but I’ll feel really bad about it.
Andy Nelson
It’s a strong film. I’m gonna say The Hurt Locker.
Pete Wright
Oh, alright. I thought you were gonna make me feel all bad because, you know.
Andy Nelson
Because I do that?
Pete Wright
Last time I got in trouble because I was I was told that the hurt locker was uh didn’t represent what the troops were going through, and the troops didn’t like it, and so I wasn’t allowed to like it.
Andy Nelson
Well I still like it. Okay. Uh Ju Dou or Out of the Past. A little uh some film noir. I’m going with Out of the Past.
Pete Wright
Really? Uh-huh.
Andy Nelson
Oh yeah. Jacques Tourneur. I really enjoy that film. One of my favorite noirs.
Pete Wright
That’s what I yeah, that was what my guts was gonna tell me. My gut I was trying to I was trying to second guess and be a film school nerd, but uh I think my I think I think I’m a film school nerd anyway. Either way I go.
Andy Nelson
Alright, we got Ju Dou or The Great Escape.
Pete Wright
Oh, I’m the Great Escape. I would absolutely, absolutely watch The Great Escape first.
Andy Nelson
I would say Ju Dou, if only for length. Because the Great Escape is so long. That is the
Pete Wright
gift of the Great Escape is that it is a long film that does not feel that long.
Andy Nelson
I’m gonna say the great escape. Alright, Ju Dou or Contagion. I’m gonna say Ju Dou. Really? Yeah. I mean I really enjoy Contagion, but I’m still saying Ju Dou. I just feel like Uh Contagion is an interesting film uh to watch and I do enjoy it, but I feel like Ju Dou is just uh you know, I feel like it’s art
Pete Wright
I just I feel guilty about that because, you know, we had we did these disease films. And it felt like like, you know Contagion was the one that rose to the top because it turns out my memory of disease films is pretty crappy.
Andy Nelson
Yeah, there were some birds around uh.
Pete Wright
Trying to give some credit to contagion there.
Andy Nelson
Hey, it’s they’re in uh good company though, and that lands Ju Dou at uh looks like at 80 on our list, right between the Great Escape and Contagion. So it’s a good spot for
Pete Wright
I will certainly take that.
Andy Nelson
Kicking off our Zhang Yimou series, I think that’s great.
Pete Wright
What does that do for your letterboxed ranking at letterbox. com slash uh The Next Reel?
Andy Nelson
I feel like this is a three and a half. Maybe give it a f uh four star with that uh half star of Andy Love
Pete Wright
Yeah, I’m I’m surprised that it takes the uh Andy Love half star to get you there. I was gonna be a solid four-star
Andy Nelson
Well, then there you go. We’ll save four. Yeah, I think it’s
Pete Wright
I think it’s a solid four. And that’s you know, that’s on first day viewing. Uh so maybe you uh it maybe it that’s influenced by you Not liking it as much as you liked it 25 years ago?
Andy Nelson
Well, remember also, I was so bitter when I put it on And I was looking at such like poor image quality and I just I thought nothing but frustration. You are impatient by that. I can I r I really was. It was so frustrating because I just remember Like that was my memory of this film was this was one of the most sumptuous uh films that I’d ever seen and then I watch it and it’s just this grainy awful DVD. So I’m wanna I wanna write a one star Amazon review, Pete. Let me tell ya.
Pete Wright
You know, you should write the one star Amazon review and mention uh quite loudly in maybe all caps that you watch this movie on YouTube and that the tr
Andy Nelson
transfer was terrible. Right, I will
Pete Wright
All right. Well where okay, so we’re in the we’ve kicked off this Zhang Yimou Mu series. Uh w where do we go from here?
Andy Nelson
Well we are gonna be going just to his very next film, uh Raise the Red Lantern. Uh it’s it’s kind of this unofficial trilogy that we’re not fully uh talking about. Red Sorghum, This, and Raise the Red Lantern. Um it’s three of his early films that Uh they all are kind of linked by uh early twentieth century pre-communist settings, themes around social constraint versus personal desire, lavish visual style, and of course the presence of Gong Li. So We’re going to be uh just going, I think, to the very next year to raise the Red Lantern. And uh I’m very much looking forward to watching that one again. Again, it’s also been probably about 25 years for me. This was in the same international cinema class, so looking forward to seeing that one again too.
Pete Wright
I can’t wait. This is gonna be a good one. Until then, I think you know. Uh I gotta go to bed.
Andy Nelson
Alright, well I have a new haircut style to try out of my son. I’m gonna call it the nice and clean with the putting green on top.
Pete Wright
Amazon giveth, Andy.
Andy Nelson
As Amazon always doeth. I’m gonna kick it off with a two-star because it it’s how I feel. Uh it says Amazon should not sell these titles, says Kamran Safavi. I believe the quality of this transfer, along with the one for Raise the Red Lantern, is so horrific that it completely ruins the beautiful experience of watching these Gong Li/Zhang Yimou movies. It should not even be offered for sale. Truly bad.
Pete Wright
If you can’t see it my way, you can’t see it at all.
Andy Nelson
Andy Nelson. That’s the half star I almost uh made the film lose in making it. So that’s it right there.
Pete Wright
I’m bringing you a three-star. And uh this one this one says Gong Li does a very good job in acting. And you know who left that? That review, Andy? Who? Ken Watanabe That’s right. Star of star of stage and screen, actor Ken Watanabe, uh, from hit films such as Inception, The Last Samurai, Batman Begins, and Letters from Iwo Jima No, I know, I know you’re gonna tell me probably not the same, Ken Watanabe, and I will tell you, not in my mind. Thanks, Amazon.
