Review of Dam Street (红颜; China, 2005)

Review of Dam Street (红颜；China, 2005), A Laurel Films, Rosem Films, and Fonds Sud Cinema production.

Director: Li Yu
Producers: Fang Li, Sylvain Bursztejn
Screenwriter: Fang Li, Li Yu
Editor: Karl Riedl
Music: Liu Sijun
Cinematographer: Wang Wei
Cast: Liu Yi, Liu Rui, Huang Xingrao
Running time: 93 MIN.

Reviewed by NYU Student Sneha Dontula

Dam Street (China, 2005), directed by Li Yu

Dam Street, directed by Li Yu and released in 2005, follows the life of a young woman who must face societal pressures as she grows up in the 1980s in China. Li Yu, who is one of a small number of women directors in China, understandably takes a close look at what it is like to be a female in a male-dominated society. In fact, the women in the film completely take center stage: men are mostly on the margins of the story, and if they are present, they are shown in a largely negative light.

The first example of this appears when the main character, Yun, and her boyfriend, Wang Feng, are telling Feng’s sister, Wang Zhengyue, that Yun is pregnant. Zhengyue immediately becomes angry and starts abusing Feng. She literally kicks him right out of the shot. His presence is simply not required. In fact, Wang Feng leaves their village shortly after this scene, never to be seen in person again. Two more examples of men being portrayed as objectionable occur at Yun’s wedding, later in the film. The married man whom she had been having an affair with had divorced his wife and married Yun, but he seems oblivious to Yun’s feelings throughout the ceremony. The worst portrayal of all, however, is when Boss Qian tries to sexually assault Yun at her own wedding. When she protests, Boss Qian tells her that no one will believe Yun is a victim because she is a “slut.” The multiple unfavorable representations of men serve as a foil to the one truly good male in the film—Xiao Yong, Yun’s son.

While every other male in the film is either conniving, selfish, disloyal, or just dim-witted, Xiao Yong is the opposite. He is clever, kind, and mischievous, but still completely devoted to Yun. From the very first moment he sees Yun, he is captivated. He is the only character who seems to accept her unconditionally—even when she is getting assaulted by others in the village for having an affair, Xiao Yong is the only one who steps up to protect her. Even when Yun’s own mother, Teacher Su, is angry with Yun, Xiao Yong continues to stand up for her. One of the most interesting features of the relationship is how Xiao Yong has a belief in Yun that persists even though Yun has very little faith in herself.

Ever since her pregnancy and ensuing rejection from society, Yun has displayed a resigned attitude towards her life. She has not left her village or attempted to get a fresh start. Instead, she has seemed to accept the image that others have of her—as a useless, promiscuous woman. Her demeaning job in the singing troupe and her lack of willingness to stand up for herself show how badly she needs something to inspire her. Yun is not a woman who is strong or self-assured, and she is not in any way the ideal protagonist of a feminist film. Luckily, Xiao Yong’s presence is the catalyst she needs, and we get to see a transformation in Yun’s sense of self that culminates in her departure from the village. Though the end of the relationship between Xiao Yong and Yun is heartbreaking, it is also hopeful. We understand that Yun is no longer willing to submit to others’ opinions of her: she is ready to live her life freely without scrutiny from anyone else.

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (3D 肉蒲团之极乐宝鉴；Hong Kong, 2011)

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy (Hong Kong, 2011), starring Hayama Hiro & Hara Saori

There is nothing “Zen” about this Hong Kong category-3 erotic fantasy (the original Chinese title also recognizes this). Instead, it is an in-your-face display of violence, sadism, faked orgy, flying body parts, penis chopping, throbbing boobs, and over-sized dildos. The term “zen” is a catch phrase in the West, and could represent anything that is mysterious, “oriental,” and possibly hard to understand. Thus, relating sex to zen seems to be a way to make the film more accessible in the West. If this is the case, I would recommend naming the film “Kung Fu Sex,” since many love-making scenes look more “kung fu” than “zen,” including a scene in which an androgyny (played by Hong Kong busty porn star Vonnie Lui) proudly displays his/her prowess by lifting and swirling a wheel with his/her snake-like long penis/dildo. This is also where the film fails. It is supposed to be a soft-core porn with titillating and erotic scenes as major attractions, but the film’s kung fu-style treatment of those scenes, coupled with a thundering  soundtrack and fast-talking dialogue, quickly turns it into an absurdly laughable exhibition of sheer stupidity.

Loosely based on the Chinese sex classic The Carnal Prayer Mat (肉蒲团), which seems to be an inexhaustible source for Hong Kong soft-core films, this recent adaptation re-displays many cliches associated with ancient Chinese sexual techniques of the “inner chamber:” absorbing yin-yang energies, playful use of sex toys, prolonging sex with ecstasy pills, and penis enlargement fantasies. But it does have a modern twist: while it tries, in vain, to deliver an elementary Buddhist message that indulging in excessive sex will result in disaster, it also ends with a laughable moral lesson that love endures without sex (a female chastity belt is introduced) and love conquers everything. Womanizer Wei Yangsheng (the male protagonist) and his lustful wife are portrayed as a devoted couple who stage a Titanic-like finale.

Japanese AV star Hara Saori plays a seductress in "3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy" (Hong Kong, 2011)

As if to combine the Hong Kong softcore tradition and Japanese pink cinema, 3D Sex and Zen has a strong Japanese flavor (or maybe it aims to be an Asian crossover hit). It features several Japanese AV stars, with Hayama Hiro playing Wei Yangsheng, the Chinese scholar obsessed with sexual techniques, Suo Yukiko playing Dongmei, a concubine f**ked to death, and Hara Saori playing a Chinese-style femme fatale. Although mainland actress Lan Yan (蓝燕, or Leni Lan) becomes “toast of the town” in China due to her naked involvement in the film (playing Wei’s lustful wife), it is Japanese AV star Hara Saori (原紗央莉, aka Nanami Mai 七海まい) who easily stands out from other naked bodies with her alluring look and performance, including a scene in which she succeeds in seducing a Buddhist abbot, a recurring theme in traditional Chinese stories, who commits suicide after being aroused.

Released in Hong Kong in April but banned in mainland China, 3D Sex and Zen quickly turns into a cult film for many Chinese who don’t have the opportunity to watch it on the big screen. It was even reported that quite a number of young people had traveled to Hong Kong in groups for the exclusive purpose of experiencing this big-screen ecstasy. Its U.S. release, however, is not going to make a splash in the free and crowded film market. In Los Angeles, it opened on August 12 in two independent theaters (Laemmle). I saw the film in Pasadena and there were no more than 15 people in the 160-seat theater (several of them walked out of the theater in the middle). According to Box Office Mojo, as of August 21, 10 days after its release, the film earned $43,592 at the U.S. box office. The film is marked as NR (Not Rated), meaning it never went to the MPAA rating office, a sure sign that it will never have the hope to play at U.S. commercial theaters.

One interesting aspect about the film’s U.S. landing is that it is distributed by the newly formed China Lion, a joint venture between China-based Jiang Yanming (蒋燕鸣) and New Zealand-based Milt Barlow (the latter via his company, Incubate) with Yanming, the majority shareholder, serving in the role of President and Barlow serving as CEO. I don’t know if it has the backing from the Chinese government, but based on the Chinese films it has distributed (all performed poorly in the U.S. market), including Beginning of the Great Revival (2011), If You are the One II (2010), and The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman (2010), it seems the company is well connected with both the state-run and private studios. But the company needs to be reminded of one basic lesson, which Hollywood has already learned: a blockbuster in China is not necessarily a blockbuster in the U.S.; a small film in China might perform exceedingly well in a different cultural and political context.

As of August 27, 2011, two weeks after its release, the two LA Laemmle theaters have stopped running 3D Sex and Zen. It may signal the end of the film’s North America showing.

Snowflower and the Secret Fan （雪花秘扇，China/US, 2011）

This China-US co-production, based on Lisa See’s bestseller and directed by Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club), will be soon cited as a negative textbook case about how co-production could easily go wrong and how a slew of A-list stars couldn’t save a contrived and badly written story. I saw the film at a LA Laemmle Theater and couldn’t wait for the film to come to an end. It makes me feel that Wendy Deng, the film’s producer and Rupert Murdoch’s third wife, is more adept at socking the face of her husband’s pie-wielding aggressor than producing a decent film that works.

Snowflower and the Secret Fan (d. Wayne Wang, China/US, 2011), starring Li Bingbing and Gianna Jun)

Snowflower and the Secret Fan suffers from many directions. It has too many flashbacks and flash-forwards, a narrative device that aims to weave together a fragmented timeline that spans more than a century. But it never works. Instead, what is presented in front of the audience is a story that lacks a focus, a “couple” that lacks chemistry, and a seemingly serious tone that sometimes feels laughable. It is true that the story is about (or tries to be so) the intimate relationship between Snowflower and Lily (and their modern “reincarnation” of Nina and Sophia) bound by the “laotong” (old comradeship) tradition and women’s script (nvshu). But this “intimacy,” so to speak, proves to be a hard sell for the audience, as there seems to be no sexual tension/chemistry between the two (or maybe the director believes mutual attraction could be simply expressed through looking at each other), and the audience is left wondering as to where their quasi-lesbian feelings come from (to be fair, Wendy Deng might be not the one to blame, as overt gay or lesbian subjects are banned in China). To make the matter worse, the film introduces too many characters and constantly shifts back and forth between 19th century China and 1990s’ Shanghai and then to present-day Shanghai, never trying to seriously explore the relationship in an in-depth manner. What is on the screen, then, is a fragmented story that has too many characters, too many locations, and too little information/explanation as to why there is such a strong female bonding between the two in the first place.

According to Box Office Mojo, as of July 25, 2011, 11 days after its initial release at 24 theaters in North America, Snowflower and the Secret Fan made US$436,170 at the box-office. This figure is next to nothing considering the film cost more than US$6 million to make, and Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club raked in nearly 33 million at the worldwide box-office in the early 1990s.