Eighteen Springs (film)
Encyclopedia
Eighteen Springs is a 1997 romance
drama
film
directed by Ann Hui
, starring Jacklyn Wu, Leon Lai
, Anita Mui
, Huang Lei
and Ge You
. It is a China
-Hong Kong
co-production based on the novel of the same name by Eileen Chang
.
The film tells of the ill-fated romance between two Chinese lovers in 1930s-40s Shanghai
and Nanjing
, which destined them to be apart for more than a decade
. The movie marked the second time Hui directed an Eileen Chang adaptation (the first was 1984’s Love in a Fallen City
).
, shortening the time span of the lovers’ separation from 18 to 14 years, and changing the title from 十八春 ("Eighteen Springs") to 半生緣 ("The affinity/yuan
of half a lifetime").
Although the film's English title retains the former Chinese title, the Chinese title uses the revised title of the book.
whose father died during her childhood, her family is supported by her elder sister, Manlu (Anita Mui), who works as a nightclub hostess. At the factory Manzhen encounters two male colleagues, Xu Shuhui (Huang Lei
) and Shen Shijun (Leon Lai), who are former classmates. The three become firm friends. Manzhen falls in love with the introverted Shijun, who hails from a wealthy family in Nanjing
and who is working in Shanghai because he does not want to inherit his father’s merchandising business.
Unable to marry the man she loves, Manlu decides to marry wealthy, decadent playboy Zhu Hongcai (Ge You). Meanwhile Manzhen and Shijun encounter impediments to their love. Shijun’s family realizes Manzhen’s sister is working in a sordid occupation and opposes their relationship, instead trying to matchmake him with a cousin, Shi Cuizhi (Annie Wu). Manzhen has a quarrel with Shijun and the two part unhappily for a while.
Manlu turns out to be barren
and in order to keep her husband by her side, engineers a night where her visiting sister Manzhen is locked in their mansion to be ravished
by Zhu (who is attracted to Manzhen). Manzhen becomes pregnant and is kept imprisoned in Zhu’s mansion, unable to communicate with Shijun. When Shijun comes over to see Manzhen later, Manlu takes the opportunity to send him away, letting him think that Manzhen has rejected his love because of the disparity between their status.
Manzhen finally escapes from a hospital after giving birth to Zhu’s son and becomes a schoolteacher in another town. By the time she writes to Shijun again, Shijun has married his cousin Cuizhi. Cuizhi and Shijun’s mother hide all her correspondences to Shijun and burn them.
Many years later, a desperately ill Manlu manages to track down Manzhen and asks for her forgiveness. Before she dies, she gives Manzhen back her biological son, fathered by Zhu, and hopes that Manzhen can bring him up. Manzhen decides to stay with Zhu for the sake of their son.
Fourteen years after they part, Manzhen and Shijun meet again coincidentally in Shanghai. At the very same eating house where they had some of their fondest memories, the two exchange their life stories to find out what really had happened to the other through the years. They are overcome by a sense of hopelessness in face of their fates, but both realize they can never go back in time.
The film then flashes back
to an earlier event when Shijun was searching for Manzhen's missing red glove, which was when their romance began.
. Jacklyn Wu also won a nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of Manzhen but did not win.
The movie is also fairly well received, though less seen, in the West. Time Out magazine compares Eighteen Springss "restrospective voiceover
s" to Wong Kar-wai
’s, calling it "visually lush and beautifully layered" and likens it to "a lyrical, poignant souvenir." Reviewers in particular single out Jacklyn Wu's portrayal of Manzhen for praise. In a fairly lengthy review, Shelly Kraicer puts Lai's performance alongside Wu’s and finds him wanting:
He praises Wu:
Other analyses of Eighteen Springs focus on Hui’s intricate use of voiceover
s.
a Best Supporting Actress prize at the 17th Hong Kong Film Awards
. It was further nominated for six other awards, which it did not win:
Jacklyn Wu however won the Best Actress award at the 4th Annual Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
for this film.
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by Ann Hui
Ann Hui
Ann Hui On-Wah is a Hong Kong film director, film producer and occasional screenwriter, one of the most critically acclaimed amongst the Hong Kong New Wave.-Early life:...
, starring Jacklyn Wu, Leon Lai
Leon Lai
Leon Lai is a Hong Kong-based actor and Cantopop singer. The media refer to Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau and Leon Lai as the Cantopop Four Heavenly Kings . He uses the stage name "Li Ming" or "Lai Ming" which literally means "dawn."-Biography:...
, Anita Mui
Anita Mui
Anita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...
, Huang Lei
Huang Lei
Huang Lei is a noted chinese actor, director, singer, screenwriter and a model as well. He was born in 6 November 1971 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province and now he lives in Beijing.-Experience:...
and Ge You
Ge You
Ge You is an acclaimed Mainland Chinese actor. A native of Beijing, he is considered by many to be one of the most recognizable acting personalities in the Mainland...
. It is a China
Cinema of China
The Chinese-language cinema has three distinct historical threads: Cinema of Hong Kong, Cinema of China, and Cinema of Taiwan. Since 1949 the cinema of mainland China has operated under restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and...
-Hong Kong
Cinema of Hong Kong
The cinema of Hong Kong is one of the three major threads in the history of Chinese language cinema, alongside the cinema of China, and the cinema of Taiwan...
co-production based on the novel of the same name by Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang was a Chinese writer. Her most famous works include Lust, Caution and Love in a Fallen City....
.
The film tells of the ill-fated romance between two Chinese lovers in 1930s-40s Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
, which destined them to be apart for more than a decade
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
. The movie marked the second time Hui directed an Eileen Chang adaptation (the first was 1984’s Love in a Fallen City
Love in a Fallen City (film)
Love in a Fallen City is a 1984 Hong Kong film directed by Ann Hui. It was adapted from the novella of the same name by Eileen Chang, and produced by Shaw Brothers Studio. The movie stars Chow Yun-fat and Cora Miao as the romantic leads....
).
Title
The novel was originally serialized in Shanghai’s Yibao (亦报) from 1950-1. Eileen Chang published a revised version in 1969 in TaiwanTaiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, shortening the time span of the lovers’ separation from 18 to 14 years, and changing the title from 十八春 ("Eighteen Springs") to 半生緣 ("The affinity/yuan
Yuanfen
Yuan or Yuanfen is a Buddhist-related Chinese concept that means the predetermined principle that dictates a person's relationships and encounters such as the affinity among friends or lovers. In common usage the term can be defined as the "binding force" that links two persons together in any...
of half a lifetime").
Although the film's English title retains the former Chinese title, the Chinese title uses the revised title of the book.
Plot
Gu Manzhen (Jacklyn Wu) is an educated girl working in a Shanghai factory as a clerical assistant. An orphanOrphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
whose father died during her childhood, her family is supported by her elder sister, Manlu (Anita Mui), who works as a nightclub hostess. At the factory Manzhen encounters two male colleagues, Xu Shuhui (Huang Lei
Huang Lei
Huang Lei is a noted chinese actor, director, singer, screenwriter and a model as well. He was born in 6 November 1971 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province and now he lives in Beijing.-Experience:...
) and Shen Shijun (Leon Lai), who are former classmates. The three become firm friends. Manzhen falls in love with the introverted Shijun, who hails from a wealthy family in Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
and who is working in Shanghai because he does not want to inherit his father’s merchandising business.
Unable to marry the man she loves, Manlu decides to marry wealthy, decadent playboy Zhu Hongcai (Ge You). Meanwhile Manzhen and Shijun encounter impediments to their love. Shijun’s family realizes Manzhen’s sister is working in a sordid occupation and opposes their relationship, instead trying to matchmake him with a cousin, Shi Cuizhi (Annie Wu). Manzhen has a quarrel with Shijun and the two part unhappily for a while.
Manlu turns out to be barren
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
and in order to keep her husband by her side, engineers a night where her visiting sister Manzhen is locked in their mansion to be ravished
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
by Zhu (who is attracted to Manzhen). Manzhen becomes pregnant and is kept imprisoned in Zhu’s mansion, unable to communicate with Shijun. When Shijun comes over to see Manzhen later, Manlu takes the opportunity to send him away, letting him think that Manzhen has rejected his love because of the disparity between their status.
Manzhen finally escapes from a hospital after giving birth to Zhu’s son and becomes a schoolteacher in another town. By the time she writes to Shijun again, Shijun has married his cousin Cuizhi. Cuizhi and Shijun’s mother hide all her correspondences to Shijun and burn them.
Many years later, a desperately ill Manlu manages to track down Manzhen and asks for her forgiveness. Before she dies, she gives Manzhen back her biological son, fathered by Zhu, and hopes that Manzhen can bring him up. Manzhen decides to stay with Zhu for the sake of their son.
Fourteen years after they part, Manzhen and Shijun meet again coincidentally in Shanghai. At the very same eating house where they had some of their fondest memories, the two exchange their life stories to find out what really had happened to the other through the years. They are overcome by a sense of hopelessness in face of their fates, but both realize they can never go back in time.
The film then flashes back
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to an earlier event when Shijun was searching for Manzhen's missing red glove, which was when their romance began.
Cast
- Jacklyn Wu as Gu Manzhen (顾曼桢)
- Leon LaiLeon LaiLeon Lai is a Hong Kong-based actor and Cantopop singer. The media refer to Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau and Leon Lai as the Cantopop Four Heavenly Kings . He uses the stage name "Li Ming" or "Lai Ming" which literally means "dawn."-Biography:...
as Shen Shijun (沈世钧) - Anita MuiAnita MuiAnita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...
as Gu Manlu (顾曼璐) - Ge YouGe YouGe You is an acclaimed Mainland Chinese actor. A native of Beijing, he is considered by many to be one of the most recognizable acting personalities in the Mainland...
as Zhu Hongcai (祝鸿才) - Annie WuAnnie Wu (actress)Annie Wu is a Taiwanese actress and model.She has mainly acted in mainland Chinese TV series, and was featured in Jackie Chan's Police Story 4: First Strike. Though not fluent in Cantonese, she has also been featured in several Hong Kong films and magazine spreads...
as Shi Cuizhi (石翠芝) - Huang LeiHuang LeiHuang Lei is a noted chinese actor, director, singer, screenwriter and a model as well. He was born in 6 November 1971 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province and now he lives in Beijing.-Experience:...
as Xu Shuhui (许叔惠) - Wang ZhiwenWang ZhiwenWang Zhiwen is a Chinese actor born in Shanghai, China. He was selected by for his acting abilities at an early age and began to pursue a career in acting that has flourished in recent years, culminating in his role in Chen Kaige's Together...
as Zhang Yujin (张豫瑾) - Liu Changwei as Fang Yipeng (方一鹏)
Reception and Criticism
Eighteen Springs was well received in Hong Kong. The film won Anita Mui the Best Supporting Actress accolade at the 17th Hong Kong Film Awards17th Hong Kong Film Awards
Ceremony for the 17th Hong Kong Film Awards was held on 26 April 1998.-Best Film:-Best Director:-Best Screenplay:-Best Actor:-Best Actress:-Best Supporting Actor:-Best Supporting Actress:-Best New Performer:-Best Cinematography:...
. Jacklyn Wu also won a nomination for Best Actress for her portrayal of Manzhen but did not win.
The movie is also fairly well received, though less seen, in the West. Time Out magazine compares Eighteen Springss "restrospective voiceover
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a screen reader built into Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, iOS and iPod operating systems. By using VoiceOver, the user can access their Macintosh or iOS device based on spoken descriptions and, in the case of the Mac, the keyboard. The feature is designed to increase accessibility for blind...
s" to Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai
Wong Kar-wai BBS is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylized, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild , Ashes of Time , Chungking Express , Fallen Angels , Happy Together and 2046...
’s, calling it "visually lush and beautifully layered" and likens it to "a lyrical, poignant souvenir." Reviewers in particular single out Jacklyn Wu's portrayal of Manzhen for praise. In a fairly lengthy review, Shelly Kraicer puts Lai's performance alongside Wu’s and finds him wanting:
- "Leon Lai fills space handsomely, but in his scenes with her, he is negative energy: you can almost see how hard Wu is working, how much energy she has to put out to make the scenes work (although they do).”
He praises Wu:
- "Wu doesn't chose an easier, self-consciously melodramaMelodramaThe term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
tic style for her portrayal of Shujun (sic). Anita Mui, as Shujun's older sister, shows both the power and limitations of this option: she strikes an unforgettable set of gorgeously sinister poses, which seem expressly designed for the camera. But one is always aware that one is watching Anita Mui, larger-than-life, dazzling us on the screen.
- "Wu Chien-lien takes an opposite, far more difficult approach. Against the expectations imposed by the melodrama genre, she builds a character out of small, lightly sketched, delicately nuanced moments. Each in itself only hints at a full emotional world that lies beneath. But as they accumulate, as Wu's character slowly builds, the parts add up to a rich and very moving whole. Her approach neatly parallels what the film teaches about how character is formed: how this woman's personality is constructed out of various pieces, events, and reactions, out of a combination of resistances to and defeats by circumstance (or 'fate', in the language of the film). When Wu shows Manjing's (sic) shock, despair, and determination to survive what's thrown at her, all of which play briefly across her face as she is told that Shujun (sic) has married someone else, we're witnessing great acting; that illuminates character, resonates with the film's structure, and at the same time subverts its overtly melodramatic form."
Other analyses of Eighteen Springs focus on Hui’s intricate use of voiceover
VoiceOver
VoiceOver is a screen reader built into Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, iOS and iPod operating systems. By using VoiceOver, the user can access their Macintosh or iOS device based on spoken descriptions and, in the case of the Mac, the keyboard. The feature is designed to increase accessibility for blind...
s.
Awards
Eighteen Springs won Anita MuiAnita Mui
Anita Mui Yim-fong was a popular Hong Kong singer and actress. During her prime years she made major contributions to the cantopop music scene, while receiving numerous awards and honours. She remained an idol throughout most of her career, and was generally regarded as a cantopop diva...
a Best Supporting Actress prize at the 17th Hong Kong Film Awards
17th Hong Kong Film Awards
Ceremony for the 17th Hong Kong Film Awards was held on 26 April 1998.-Best Film:-Best Director:-Best Screenplay:-Best Actor:-Best Actress:-Best Supporting Actor:-Best Supporting Actress:-Best New Performer:-Best Cinematography:...
. It was further nominated for six other awards, which it did not win:
- Best Actress (Jacklyn Wu)
- Best Cinematography (Lee Ping-Bin)
- Best Art Direction (Tsui Fung-Nyn, Wong Yan-Kwai)
- Best Costume Design (Miu Gwan-Git)
- Best Original Score (Yip Siu-Gong)
- Best Original Song ("Eighteen Springs", performed by Leon Lai)
Jacklyn Wu however won the Best Actress award at the 4th Annual Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
The Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards are the annual awards given by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society in Hong Kong, China since 1995. The awards are determined by votes cast in three rounds after a substantial discussion session between the members of the society...
for this film.
External links
- Eighteen Springs at the Chinese Movie Database
- Full review of Eighteen Springs by Shelley Kraicer