2021-03-02

A City of Sadness - Wikipedia 悲情城市 비정성시 (1989)

A City of Sadness - Wikipedia

A City of Sadness

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
A City of Sadness
Beiqing-chengshi-taiwanese-movie-poster-md.jpg
Taiwanese film poster
Chinese悲情城市
Mandarinbēiqíng chéngshì
LiterallyCity of sadness
Directed byHou Hsiao-hsien
Produced byChiu Fu-sheng
Written byChu T’ien-wen
Wu Nien-jen
StarringTony Leung Chiu Wai
Sung Young Chen
Jack Kao
Li Tian-lu
Music byS.E.N.S.
CinematographyChen Hwai-en
Edited byLiao Ching-song
Production
company
3-H Films
Distributed byEra Communications (Int'l rights)
Release date
Running time
157 minutes
CountryTaiwan
LanguagesTaiwanese
Mandarin
Japanese
Cantonese
Shanghainese

A City of Sadness (Chinese: 悲情城市; pinyin: Bēiqíng chéngshì) is a 1989 Taiwanese historical drama film directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien. It tells the story of a family embroiled in the "White Terror" that was wrought on the Taiwanese people by the Kuomintang government (KMT) after their arrival from mainland China in the late 1940s, during which thousands of Taiwanese and recent emigres from the Mainland were rounded up, shot, and/or sent to prison. The film was the first to deal openly with the KMT's authoritarian misdeeds after its 1945 takeover of Taiwan, which had been restored to China following Japan's defeat in World War II, and the first to depict the February 28 Incident of 1947, in which thousands of people were massacred by the KMT.

A City of Sadness was the first (of three) Taiwanese films to win the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, and is often considered Hou's masterpiece.[1] The film was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.[2]

This film is regarded as the first installment in a trilogy of Hsiao-Hsien's films that deal with Taiwanese history, which also includes 

These films are collectively called the "Taiwan Trilogy" by academics and critics.[3]

Plot[edit]

The film follows the Lin family in a coastal town near Taipei, Taiwan from 1945 to 1949, the period after the end of 50 years of Japanese colonial rule and before the establishment of a government-in-exile in Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Kuomintang forces once the Communist army captured mainland China.

The film starts on August 15, 1945, with the voice of Emperor Hirohito announcing Japan's unconditional surrender. Meanwhile, Lin Wen-heung, who runs a bar called "Little Shanghai" and is the eldest of the Lin's four sons, awaits the birth of his child. The second son disappeared in the Philippines during the war. The fourth and youngest son, Wen-ching, is a photographer with leftist leanings who became deaf following a childhood accident; he is close friends with Hinoe and Hinoe's sister, Hinomi.

The third son, Lin Wen-leung, returns to Taiwan from the war but suffers a nervous breakdown. He begins to engage in illegal activities, including the theft of Japanese currency notes and the smuggling of drugs with Shanghainese drug dealers. Wen-heung eventually learns of this and stops Wen-leung. However, this leads the Shanghaiese mob to arrange for Wen-leung's imprisonment on false charges of collaboration with the Japanese. While in prison, Wen-leung is tortured and suffers a brain injury that leaves him mentally ill after his release.

The February 28 Incident of 1947 occurs, in which thousands of Taiwanese people are massacred by Kuomintang troops. The Lin family follows announcements related to the event via radio, in which Chen Yi, the chief executive of Taiwan, declares martial law to suppress dissenters. The wounded pour into the neighborhood clinic, and Wen-ching and Hinoe are arrested. Upon their release from prison, Hinoe heads for the mountains to join the leftist guerillas. Wen-ching expresses his desire to join Hinoe, but Hinoe convinces Wen-ching to return and marry Hinomi, who loves him.

When Lin Wen-heung is gambling at a casino one day, a fight breaks out with one of the Shanghainese who previously framed Wen-leung. This results in Wen-heung being shot and killed by a Shanghainese mafia member. Following Wen-heung's funeral, Wen-ching and Hinomi marry at home, and Hinomi later bears a child. The couple supports Hinoe's resistance group, but the guerilla forces are defeated and executed. They manage to inform Wen-ching of the fact and encourage him to escape, but Hinomi later recounts that they did not have anywhere to go. As a result, Wen-ching is soon arrested by the Kuomintang for his involvement with the guerillas.

Cast[edit]

Music[edit]

No.NameNo.Name
01悲情城市～A City Of Sadness04Hiromiのテーマ
02Hiromi～Flute Solo05悲情城市～Variation 2
03文清のテーマ06凛～Dedicated To Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Sourced from Xiami Music.[4]

Production[edit]

Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap




A City of Sadness was filmed on location in Jiufen, an old and declined gold mining town in the northeast of Taiwan.

Background[edit]

By the 1980s, the New Taiwanese Cinema movement was moving towards not just creating films for the people of Taiwan, but also for a larger, international audience. Directors Hou Hsiao-hsien and Edward Yang noted that they wanted to emulate the popularity of Hong Kong cinema, which revolved around high quality productions with strong star power to back it up.[3] In A City of Sadness, Hou relied primarily on foreign investment, particularly form Japan. Japanese technology, techniques, and facilities were used in the post-production and resulted in what critic and producer Zhan Hongzhi described as an aspect of "high-quality" that could draw in international viewership.[3] Another aspect of this plan was star power, reflected in one of the principal characters, Wen-ching, being played by then rising Hong Kong film star Tony Leung.[3] The intention behind this was to increase Hong Kong and Overseas Chinese viewership. The film also used an array of different languages, chiefly Taiwanese Hokkien, Cantonese, Japanese, and Shanghainese as a way to promote the cultural diversity of the cast and reflectively, of Taiwan to a global audience, which stands in contrast to many earlier films being only in Mandarin Chinese, due to the governments promotion of Mandarin as the national language.[3]

Conceptualization[edit]

Hou Hsiao-hsien was interested in creating a film that could tell a story about a family, specifically during the 228 Incident and the White Terror by a few reasons. He cited how the death of Chiang Ching-kuo in 1988 and the lifting of martial law the year prior made it an appropriate time to address the 228 Incident, which Hou felt had been covered up by the government. He noted how books were not available on the subject and he wanted to provided a vantage point about the story through the lens of a family.[5]

Hou Hsiao-hsien wrote:

"Everybody knew about the 228 Incident. Nobody would say anything, at least in public, but behind closed doors everyone was talking about it, especially in the Tangwai Movement [..] The 228 Incident was already known, so I was more interested in filming a time of transition, and the changes in a family during a change in regime. This was the main thing I wanted to capture… There’s been too much political intervention. We should go back to history itself for a comprehensive reflection, but politicians like to use this tragedy as an ATM, making a withdrawal from it whenever they want. It’s awful. So no matter what point of view I took with the film, people would still criticize it. I was filming events that were still taboo, I had a point of view, and no matter what, I was filming from the point of view of people and a family… Of course it’s limited by the filmmaker’s vision and attitude. I can only present a part of the atmosphere of the time."[5]

According to scriptwriter Chu Tien-Wen's book, the original premise of the film was the reunion of an ex-gangster (which Hou Hsiao-Hsien intended to cast Chow Yun-fat for the role) and his former lover (supposedly played by Yang Li-Hua, the top Taiwanese Opera actress in real-life) in 1970s. Hou and Chu then extended the story to involve substantial flashbacks of the calamity of the woman's family in late 1940s (where the woman was the teenage daughter of Chen Song-Yong's character). They then abandoned the former premise and instead focused on the 1940s' story.

Film Techniques[edit]

The movie includes many Chinese dialects, such as Southern Min, Cantonese and Shanghainese, which make this film pellucid for different groups of people. Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley explains that "by representing the political reality of the late 1940s indirectly, A City of Sadness deals with the past, but is not trapped by the past, and is able to achieve a sense of objectiveness and authenticity."[6] The use of dialects and historical facts can make audiences have a connection to characters within the film, and insure the objectiveness and authenticity.

Wen-ching's deafness and muteness began as an expedient way to disguise Tony Leung's inability to speak Taiwanese (or Japanese—the language taught in Taiwan's schools during the 51-year Japanese rule), but wound up being an effective means to demonstrate the brutal insensitivity of Chen Yi's ROC administration.[7]

Reception and impact[edit]

Critical Reception[edit]

A City of Sadness was a major commercial success in Taiwan, but critics were largely ambivalent toward the work. Having been advertised as a film about the February 28 Incident but never explicitly depicting the event, the film was consequently criticized as politically ambiguous, as well as overly difficult to follow.[8] It was also criticised for not depicting the events of February 28 well, instead presenting the events in a subtle and elliptical manner.[9] It is now widely considered a masterpiece,[10] and has been described as "probably the most significant film to have emerged out of Taiwan’s New Cinema."[8]

Richard Brody of The New Yorker argued, "Hou’s extraordinarily controlled and well-constructed long takes blend revelation and opacity; his favorite trope is to shoot through doorways, as if straining to capture the action over impassable spans of time."[11] In Time Out, Tony Rayns wrote, "Loaded with detail and elliptically structured to let viewers make their own connections, [...] Hou turns in a masterpiece of small gestures and massive resonance; once you surrender to its spell, the obscurities vanish."[12] Jonathan Rosenbaum lauded Hou as "a master of long takes and complex framing, with a great talent for passionate (though elliptical and distanced) storytelling."[13] In the Chicago Tribune, Dave Kehr declared, "A City of Sadness is a great film, one that will be watched as long as there are people who care about the movies as an art."[14]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 9.33/10.[15] In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll, 14 critics and two directors named A City of Sadness one of the ten greatest films ever made, placing it at #117 in the critics' poll and #322 in the directors' poll.[16]

History, Trauma, and Reconciliation[edit]

Critics have noted how this film (as well as the other 2 films that form the trilogy) started a larger discussion into memory and reconciliation for the 228 Incident and the White Terror on Taiwan. Sylvia Lin commented that "literary, scholarly, historical, personal, and cinematic accounts of the past have mushroomed, as the people in Taiwan feel the urgent need to remember, reconstruct, and rewrite that part of their history.”[17] June Yip noted that the Taiwan Trilogy marked a “autobiographical impulse” to reclaim the history that was now acceptable with the lifting or martial law.[18] Another critic, Jean Ma, also noted the method of displaying trauma by Hou felt "real" and could connect to global audiences everywhere from the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, the desaparecidos of Argentina, and the Armenian massacre as instances in which memory bears the ethical burden of a disavowed or denied history."[18]

Resurgence of Taiwanese Hokkien (Taiyu) In Film[edit]

A City Of Sadness has been touted as one of the few films to bring Taiwanese Hokkien to prominence and to a global audience. The usage of Taiwanese Hokkien in the film has been noted to be in direct conflict with the then-rule regarding national language in Taiwan. The Taiwanese language policy about promoting Mandarin made making films in other minority dialects and languages limited to only a third of the total script. A City of Sadness however, was filmed mostly in Taiwanese Hokkien. Hou Hsiao-hsien's film was allowed by the Government Information Office (the office responsible for government censorship/media) to send a copy of the rough cut to Japan for post-production where it was processed and sent directly to the Venice Film Festival without being authenticated by Taiwanese censors from the GIC.[19] The winning of the Golden Lion and Golden Horse Awards marked a first for Chinese-speaking films, but also were controversial, since A City of Sadness violated then rules about national language usage in films. The success of the film however, renewed interest in Taiwanese Hokkien and became part of the Taiyu Language Movement and started a resurgence of films from Taiwan that utilized minority languages such as Hakka alongside other Taiwanese indigenous languages.

Contemporary References[edit]

The term "City Of Sadness" has been used to describe the state of Hong Kong after the 2014 Umbrella Movement by scholars. Academic Tina L. Rochelle has associated the term with how Hong Kong's trajectory mirrors the trajectory of Taiwan during the 228 Incident and the White Terror.[20] Much like in the case of the 228 Incident, the Umbrella movement was fueled by building resentment of the way Hong Kong citizens were being treated after the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the Peoples Republic of China. The cause of anger with citizens was the deterioration of freedoms and rights, the increased feeling of policing, and the imposition of a foreign power's sovereignty over a newly integrated location. This is a characteristic Rochelle highlights as similar in both Taiwan and Hong Kong and is what makes Hong Kong a "modern City of Sadness."[20]

Awards and nominations[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Xiao, Zhiwei; Zhang, Yingjin (2002). Encyclopedia of Chinese Film. Routledge. p. 190. ISBN 1134745540.
  2. ^ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Trauma and Cinema: Cross-Cultural Explorations. Hong Kong University Press. 2008. ISBN 978-962-209-624-0.
  4. ^ "A City of Sadness by S.E.N.S." Xiami Music.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b "Reality in Long Shots: A CITY OF SADNESS | Austin Asian American Film Festival | Online Shorts Festival June 11–17, 2020". Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  6. ^ Rawnsley, Ming-Yeh T. "Cinema, Historiography, and Identities in Taiwan: Hou Hsiao-Hsien's A City of Sadness". Asian Cinema. 22 (2): 196–213. ISSN 1059-440X.
  7. ^ Berry, Michael (October 2005). Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-13330-2.
  8. ^ Jump up to:a b "A City of Sadness". Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  9. ^ Linden, Sheri (23 August 2019). "'A City Of Sadness': Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Historical Tragedy Remains A Masterpiece 30 Years Later". SupChina. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  10. ^ Shaw, Tristan (28 March 2015). "Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien captures life's big, small moments". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 6 February 2017. "In "A City of Sadness," widely considered a masterpiece,"
  11. ^ Brody, Richard. "A City of Sadness". The New Yorker. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  12. ^ Rayns, Tony. "A City of Sadness". Time Out. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  13. ^ Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "A City of Sadness". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  14. ^ Kehr, Dave (22 June 1990). "Taiwanese `Sadness` Filmmaking At Its Best". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  15. ^ "Bei qing cheng shi (A City of Sadness) (1989)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
  16. ^ ""City of Sadness, A" (1989)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 20 August 2012. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  17. ^ Lin, Sylvia Li-chun (2007). Representing Atrocity in Taiwan: The 2/28 Incident and White Terror in Fiction and Film. Columbia University Press. doi:10.7312/lin-14360.10#metadata_info_tab_contents.
  18. ^ Jump up to:a b Ma, Jean (2010). Melancholy Drift: Marking Time in Chinese Cinema. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 978-988-8028-05-4.
  19. ^ Zhang, Yingjin (2013). "Articulating Sadness, Gendering Space: The Politics and Poetics of Taiyu Films from 1960s Taiwan". Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. 25 (1): 1–46. ISSN 1520-9857.
  20. ^ Jump up to:a b Rochelle, Tina L. (2015). "Diversity and Trust in Hong Kong: An Examination of Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong's 'City of Sadness'". Social Indicators Research. 120 (2): 437–454. ISSN 0303-8300.
  21. ^ "The awards of the Venice Film Festival". Retrieved 6 March 2011.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

A City of Sadness at IMDb
A City of Sadness at Rotten Tomatoes
A City of Sadness at AllMovie

비정성시 (1989)
A City of Sadness

원제
悲情城市
장르
드라마
감독
허우샤오셴
제작
구복생
각본
추티엔웬
우니엔젠
출연
양조위, 진송용, 신소분, 가오제, 이천록 외
제작사
3-H 필름
개봉일자
대만 국기 1989년 10월
편집
리아오 칭송
상영 시간
157분

1. 개요2. 줄거리3. 평가4. 기타

1. 개요[편집]

1989년 개봉한 허우샤오셴 감독 영화로 일제 치하에서 벗어난 직후의 대만을 배경으로 하며 대만 현대사의 비극인 2.28 사건을 주요 소재로 다루고 있다. 에드워드 양의 고령가 소년 살인사건, 차이밍량의 애정만세와 함께 대만 뉴웨이브를 대표하는 걸작으로 평가받는다.

공개된 해에 베네치아 영화제 대상인 황금사자상을 수상했는데 아시아 영화로 39년만의 일이라 큰 화제를 불러일으켰다[1]. 이 작품으로 양조위가 국내에게 알려지게 된다. 한국 개봉 당시, 상영시간이 길다고 40분이 넘게 잘려나가는 탓에 흥행에서 참패했으나 비디오로 나오면서 잘려나간 부분이 다 나오고 비디오 대여에서 꽤 히트를 친 바 있다.

2. 줄거리[편집]

이 문서에 스포일러가 포함되어 있습니다.

이 문서가 설명하는 작품이나 인물 등에 대한 줄거리, 결말, 반전 요소 등을 직·간접적으로 포함하고 있습니다.
1945년 일본의 무조건 항복 소식이 전해지는 라디오 뉴스가 들리는 가운데 한 아이가 태어난다. 대만이 51년간의 일제 식민통치에서 벗어나는 날, 기륭시의 부자인 임아록 가문은 장손을 얻는 경사까지 겹쳐 두배의 기쁨을 누린다. 임아록은 네명의 아들을 두었는데 장남 문웅은 고향에서 아버지 임아록을 모시면서 장사를 하고 있고, 둘째 문상은 의사였는데 일본군 군의관으로 징병되어 필리핀 전선에 간 뒤 소식이 끊겼다. 셋째 문량은 중국에 건너가 일본군에 물자를 대는 장사를 하다가 일본 패전 후 고초를 겪고 미쳐서 돌아온다. 귀머거리에다 벙어리인 넷째 문청은 선량한 인물로 지우펀의 사진관에서 일하고 있다. 문청의 친구인 대만의 지식인 청년 관영은 해방과 국민당군의 진주를 환영했으나(영화 초반 친구들과 술집씬), 대만인들을 친일파로 몰아 점령군 행세를 하는 국민정부에 대한 반발심을 갖게 된다. 1947년 외성인과 본성인이 충돌하는 2.28 사건이 발생하자 관영은 사건 수습을 위해 타이베이로 떠나 임선생님(林老師)을 모시고 2.28 수습위원회에 참가한다. 이 때 문청이 관영을 따라 타이베이로 가던 중에 외성인에 대한 보복에 나선 본성인들에 의해 友敵 테스트를 받게 되고 귀머거리라는 것을 모르는 그들에게 두들겨맞을 뻔 하게 되나 관영이 사정을 설명하고 구해주고 문청에게 위험하니 지우펀으로 돌아가라고 한다.

대륙에서 건너온 국민정부의 부패는 날로 심해지고 물가는 천정부지로 치솟아 국민들은 이중, 삼중고에 시달리게 된다. 문량은 정신불안에서 회복된 후 국민당군을 따라 대만에 들어온 상하이파 폭력조직을 만나 거래를 트면서 마약 밀수에 가담하는데, 중국 대륙에서 쌀과 설탕을 수입하던 맏형 문웅의 화물에 이를 섞어 들여오다가 이를 우연히 알게 된 문웅이 노발대발하게 되고 그는 상하이파 조직을 찾아가 격렬하게 따진다. 그러자 문웅이 껄끄러운 상하이파 조직에서는 국민정부에 문량이 일제에 협력했다고 고발하였고 문량은 중화민국군에 의해 체포되어 끌려간다. 문량을 구하기 위해 임씨 집안 전원이 나서 문청은 친구 관영을 통해 힘을 쓰고, 문웅은 상하이파 조직을 찾아가 뇌물을 주어 문량을 석방시키지만 이미 이전에 한 차례 고문을 받았던 문량은 친일파 매국노로 몰려 가혹한 고문을 받고 완전히 미쳐버려 다시는 제 정신을 찾지 못한다.

그 사이 관영의 친구인 문청까지 대만인들을 친일파로 몰아(문량에 이어 문청까지 잡혀갔다는 소식을 전해 듣고 "이제는 귀머거리까지 친일매국노로 잡아가느냐?"고 한탄하는 아버지 임아록의 모습이 압권) 학살하던 국민당군에 끌려가 처형당할 뻔 했으나, 맏형 문웅의 노력으로 간신히 석방되었다.[2] 일본군으로 출정해 소식이 끊겼던 둘째 문상의 유언이 적힌 혈서와 군화 등 유품이 집에 도착하고,[3] 그가 살아돌아올 것이라고 믿고 있던 가족들은 오열한다. 문웅은 화를 참고집안을 영위하기 위해 상하이파 조직과 만나 친분을 쌓으며 마작을 두고 있던 차에, 문량이 고발당한 데 대해 원한을 품고 있던 임씨집안 직원 '阿哥'가 화장실에서 상하이파 조직원과 시비가 붙었다가 불의의 습격을 당해 칼에 찔리면서, 그 상사인 문웅도 싸움에 휘말리게 되고 상하이파 조직 보스가 발사한 권총탄을 심장에 맞고 사망한다.

집안의 비극에 절망함과 동시에 감방에 끌려가 죽을 뻔 하면서 시국에 환멸을 느낀 문청은 반정부 활동에 참여하기로 결심한다. 친구 관영은 2.28사건 수습위원회에 참가했다가 장제스의 학살을 간신히 피해 지우펀의 집으로 돌아왔다가 본격적인 반정부 활동을 위해 산간 지역에 숨어든 상태였다. 감방 동료가 형님에게 전하는 유언을 전달하기 위해 산간지방을 찾아간 문청은 관영에게 합류하고 싶다는 의사를 표시하나, 관영은 생업에 충실하라고 조언하며 자신의 집안에서 다른 남자에게 시집보내려한다며 동생 관미와 결혼해줄 것을 부탁한다. 간호사인 관미는 오래전부터 오빠 친구인 문청을 좋아해왔다. 문청은 이를 거절했으나 맏형 문웅이 사망하여 장례를 치른 후, 관미와 결혼하고 지우펀의 사진관 운영을 통해 관영이 속한 단체에 비밀리에 자금을 대주며 생활한다. 문청과 관미 부부는 아들을 낳고 짧은 행복을 누리지만, 조직이 발각된 관영이 국민당군[4]에게 총살되고, 이 소식을 들은 문청은 미래를 직감하여 가족사진을 찍고 사흘 후 이를 현상하던 중 찾아온 군인들에게 체포되어 어디론가 끌려가 행방불명이 된다.

마지막은 완전히 늙어버린 임아록과 미쳐버린 아들 임문량 그리고 장손(1945년 8월 15일 태어난 임문웅의 아들)이 식탁에 둘러앉아 밥을 먹는 장면으로 끝난다. 일제 패망 후부터 2.28 사건 이후까지 대만 근현대사의 편지풍파를 거치면서 기륭의 부호였던 임씨 집안은 아들들을 모두 잃고, 가산까지 빼앗긴 상태가 되버린다.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aolv8k99ZOU&feature=emb_logo










Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)