8 of 9 people found this review helpful. While waiting for the next batch of reads from my local library, I picked up this 3-story collection off my bookshelf at home as it looked short, interesting and easy.
The Chinese film "Raise the Red Lantern" (1991), like the Japanese film "Woman in the Dunes" (1960), is about sexual enslavement. In doing so, I found that there are some differences between the film and the book, but the core remains unchanged, and that's definitely a good thing.
Each night Chen chooses the wife with whom to spend the night and a red lantern is lit in front of the house of his choice. It is what I would call exotic, not easy to comprehend: different country, different time period, different ideas. It's beautifully atmospheric and menacing; Songlian (or "Lotus" as her name is translated in this edition) is much more complex and layered than one would expect from such a short story. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each ... Only a few things that were left out from this short novella did explain in detail certain things from the movie that you didn't know the backstory of, but in reality it didn't change the plot or matter.
The camera continues to soak up the exoticism of the film’s mise en scène. Su Tong's three novellas speak on the surface of gender and sexual repression, but underneath that layer it is brilliant and brutal humanization of a culture that has repressed itself for centuries.Beautifully written novellas that symbolizes the brutality and repression of Chinese history at the turn of the 20th Century. The competition between the wives is fierce, as their master’s attention carries power, status and privilege.
The story is as perfect as Eileen Chang's The Golden Cangue, which is also one of my favorite novellas.Rarely is the movie better than the book but in this case I have to say the screenwriter developed the story better than the author! Must recover from the holiday first. The organisation of space is striking: tight, symmetrical framing, voyeuristic high angles, intimidating low angles, rigid high walls forming a daunting grid. By framing all scenes involving the Master so that he is out of shot or kept at such a distance that he is unreadable, Zhang literally gives us little to look at but the women and their gilded prison. Equally, there are wider themes that extend across Zhang’s entire body of work: the crushing of the individual as the price of community stability, Oedipal power structures and suppressed passion. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of No indication is giving that she's a girl being raped by the man who bought her, making her discent into madness difficult to reconcile. In the beginning of the film, Master Chen says that a woman’s feet are very important, the more comfortable they are, the When a leprous winery owner in 1930s China dies a few days after his arranged marriage, his young widow is forced to run the winery to make a living while contending with bandits, her drunkard lover, and the invading Japanese army. The sedan chair had been meant for Songlian. While waiting for the next batch of reads from my local library, I picked up this 3-story collection off my bookshelf at home as it looked short, interesting and easy. After her father’s death, 19-year-old Songlian is forced to marry Chen Zuoqian, the 50-year-old head of a powerful family.
It's a poorly kept secret that I am a sucker for any mournful, bittersweet historic Chinese novel about the oppressive cultural struggles of strong, female protagonists. I liked how the screenwriter focused on the story on the lanterns, which in the book they aren't even mentioned.
July 6th 2004 In doing so, I found that there are some differences between the film and the book, but the core remains unchanged, and that's definitely a good thing. So if I could rate each story, the first one I'll give four stars, the other two, I'll give two stars and I'm being generous.If you have never read anything about Chinese rural life, then this might interest you.
The first story is 'being bitchy in a Chinese noble house' (think 'Empresses in the Palace', but no fun). While I loved "Raise the Red Lantern," "Nineteen Thirty-Four Escapes" was just as powerful. Raise the Red Lantern also displays Zhang’s signature style: balanced framing, bold use of colour and the penetrating close-up. The spectator is thus positioned as her tormentor, forced to watch as this acceptance of fate overwhelms her.
A young woman becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy lord, and must learn to live with the strict rules and tensions within the household. I also saw the movie with the same name, and it was interesting to note the differences between the story and the film - the bad servant that constantly antagonizes Lotus is punished in very different ways in the movie and book. And Su Tong's little lights of dignity and humanity, wherever he chooses to place them, mostly seem to emphasize the darkness of everything else around them.It is a strange book. Celebrate National Dog Day with a look at some shows that feature a few of the most adorable dogs on TV.Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? It's an interesting peek into sinophone literature; in this case, the sum of the parts exceeds that of the whole.All three novels show the brutal realities of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s in China, respectively. If I want to die, I'll just die; it's too tiresome to be sick.
After a further percussive outburst, a brief second scene shows Songlian staring at a passing sedan chair.
Songlian’s initial opposition is undermined as she herself insists on abusive tradition and ritual being followed, resulting in Yan’er’s death. I initially bought this book because I'd seen the movie I initially bought this book because I'd seen the movie Beautifully written tragedy.
All in all, a good read.