The Wooden Man's Bride
Encyclopedia
The Wooden Man's Bride is a 1994 Chinese film directed by the fifth generation filmmaker Huang Jianxin
. The film is Huang's fifth feature and the first of his films to be released in the United States. The film was also the first film shot in Mainland China to be entirely financed by Taiwanese producers. The film stars both Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese actors, and was based on the novel by Jia Pingao.
The Wooden Man's Bride was something of a departure for the director, Huang Jianxin
, whose earlier works were modern day satires on bureaucracy as in the black comedy, The Black Cannon Incident
, and the science-fiction dystopia in Dislocation.
, The Wooden Man's Bride is a romance film between two unlikely people from different classes. A young woman, known only as "Young Mistress" (Wang Lan), is on her way to meet her future husband for the first time when her procession is attacked by sword-wielding bandits in the desert. A servant, Kui (Chang Shih) recklessly takes off after the bandits who have kidnapped the young mistress and taken her back to their lair. When he arrives, Kui impresses the chief of the bandits (Kao Mingjun), who allows Kui to take the Young Mistress back.
Meanwhile, word has reached the Young Mistress's fiancé of her capture. Preparing to engage in a thrilling rescue, the hapless young man accidentally sets off an explosion, killing him. When Young Mistress finally arrives, she faces her fiancé's imperious mother (Wang Yumei), who forces the young woman to undergo arcane tests of purity to determine whether she is worthy to marry the (now dead) bridegroom. When Young Mistress passes these tests, she is forced to marry the titular "wooden man," a wood-carved statue of her late fiancé.
Forced into a life she does not want, Young Mistress tries and fails to escape from her new home. She finds solace in her growing friendship with her one-time hero, Kui, a friendship that soon blossoms into an illicit love affair. When the affair is discovered, Kui is banished from the mill, and Madame Liu has the Young Mistress's legs broken to prevent escape. Kui, however, is determined to rescue his love once more.
found the film to be a "ravishing spectacle," though not necessarily groundbreaking, especially in light of similar films such as Zhang Yimou
's 1990 drama, Ju Dou
. The San Francisco Chronicle
's Edward Guthmann, however, found the comparison to Zhang's earlier films as diminishing The Wooden Man's Bride. While he found the film to be an "entertaining melodrama," it nevertheless lacked the "technical mastery or historical reverberations" of those other auteurs. Other critics felt that Huang had more than matched his contemporaries, in the process creating the "most visually stunning, emotionally powerful western since Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven.""
At least one critic praised not only the film's sense of spectacle, but also what he saw as the film's underlying cultural criticism. Stephen Holden
of The New York Times noted that the film was a "methodical, cool-headed expose of an oppressive sexual code that treats women as chattel and metes out brutal punishment to violators."
Huang Jianxin
Huang Jianxin is a Chinese film director. He is normally considered part of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers , due to shared traits in his works, although he was not a strictly a member of the inaugural 1982 class of the Beijing Film Academy...
. The film is Huang's fifth feature and the first of his films to be released in the United States. The film was also the first film shot in Mainland China to be entirely financed by Taiwanese producers. The film stars both Taiwanese and Mainland Chinese actors, and was based on the novel by Jia Pingao.
The Wooden Man's Bride was something of a departure for the director, Huang Jianxin
Huang Jianxin
Huang Jianxin is a Chinese film director. He is normally considered part of the fifth generation of Chinese filmmakers , due to shared traits in his works, although he was not a strictly a member of the inaugural 1982 class of the Beijing Film Academy...
, whose earlier works were modern day satires on bureaucracy as in the black comedy, The Black Cannon Incident
The Black Cannon Incident
The Black Cannon Incident is a 1985 Chinese black comedy film satirizing the bureaucracy and paranoia of Chinese authority. Presented by Xi'an Film Studio and directed by Huang Jianxin, it stars Gao Ming, Gerhard Olschewski, and Liu Zifeng....
, and the science-fiction dystopia in Dislocation.
Plot
Set in the 1920s during China's Warlord EraWarlord era
The Chinese Warlord Era was the period in the history of the Republic of China, from 1916 to 1928, when the country was divided among military cliques, a division that continued until the fall of the Nationalist government in the mainland China regions of Sichuan, Shanxi, Qinghai, Ningxia,...
, The Wooden Man's Bride is a romance film between two unlikely people from different classes. A young woman, known only as "Young Mistress" (Wang Lan), is on her way to meet her future husband for the first time when her procession is attacked by sword-wielding bandits in the desert. A servant, Kui (Chang Shih) recklessly takes off after the bandits who have kidnapped the young mistress and taken her back to their lair. When he arrives, Kui impresses the chief of the bandits (Kao Mingjun), who allows Kui to take the Young Mistress back.
Meanwhile, word has reached the Young Mistress's fiancé of her capture. Preparing to engage in a thrilling rescue, the hapless young man accidentally sets off an explosion, killing him. When Young Mistress finally arrives, she faces her fiancé's imperious mother (Wang Yumei), who forces the young woman to undergo arcane tests of purity to determine whether she is worthy to marry the (now dead) bridegroom. When Young Mistress passes these tests, she is forced to marry the titular "wooden man," a wood-carved statue of her late fiancé.
Forced into a life she does not want, Young Mistress tries and fails to escape from her new home. She finds solace in her growing friendship with her one-time hero, Kui, a friendship that soon blossoms into an illicit love affair. When the affair is discovered, Kui is banished from the mill, and Madame Liu has the Young Mistress's legs broken to prevent escape. Kui, however, is determined to rescue his love once more.
Cast
- Wang Lan as Young Mistress, the film's headstrong heroine and the titular "Wooden Man's Bride".
- Chang Shih as Kui, a peasant-servant who first saves the Young Mistress from the bandits and later becomes her lover.
- Kao Mingjun as Chief Tang, the charismatic leader of the bandits who kidnap Young Mistress.
- Wang Yumei as Madame Liu, the imperious mother of Young Mistress's fiancé. Madame Liu's husband died twenty years earlier, leaving her in charge of a tofuTofuis a food made by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into soft white blocks. It is part of East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and others. There are many different varieties of tofu, including fresh tofu and tofu...
mill. - Wang FuliWang FuliWang Fuli is a famed Chinese actress.Wang was born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, and her ancestral hometown was Tianjin. She graduated from Jiangsu Drama College in 1967, majoring in Peking Opera. Wang later served as an actress of Jiangsu Provincial Peking Opera Troupe. In 1980, she became an...
as Sister Ma, Madame Liu's devoted housemaid.
International reception
Western critics warmly received Huang's shift into the historical drama film. One early review during its premiere at the International Film Festival RotterdamInternational Film Festival Rotterdam
The International Film Festival Rotterdam is an annual film festival held in various cinemas in Rotterdam, Netherlands held at the end of January. It is approximately comparable in size to other major European festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Locarno...
found the film to be a "ravishing spectacle," though not necessarily groundbreaking, especially in light of similar films such as Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou
Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director, producer, writer and actor, and former cinematographer. He is counted amongst the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, having made his directorial debut in 1987 with Red Sorghum....
's 1990 drama, Ju Dou
Ju Dou
Ju Dou is a 1990 Chinese film directed by Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang and starring Gong Li as the title character. It is notable for being shot in vivid Technicolor long after the process had been abandoned in the United States...
. The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
's Edward Guthmann, however, found the comparison to Zhang's earlier films as diminishing The Wooden Man's Bride. While he found the film to be an "entertaining melodrama," it nevertheless lacked the "technical mastery or historical reverberations" of those other auteurs. Other critics felt that Huang had more than matched his contemporaries, in the process creating the "most visually stunning, emotionally powerful western since Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven.""
At least one critic praised not only the film's sense of spectacle, but also what he saw as the film's underlying cultural criticism. Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
of The New York Times noted that the film was a "methodical, cool-headed expose of an oppressive sexual code that treats women as chattel and metes out brutal punishment to violators."
See also
- Ju DouJu DouJu Dou is a 1990 Chinese film directed by Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang and starring Gong Li as the title character. It is notable for being shot in vivid Technicolor long after the process had been abandoned in the United States...
, Zhang Yimou's 1990 film also about a young woman forced into a loveless marriage, though with a living human being.
External links
- The Wooden Man's Bride at the Chinese Movie Database