An Attempt at Perfection

A common theme throughout almost all of the films we have watched this semester. One theme seemed very important to me. That theme being, there is a significant value to how you are seen by the world. Within the films, A Better Tomorrow, The Drunken Master, Raise The Red Lantern, Fists of Fury, and Farewell, My Concubine each display this idea with stunning clarity, but each in their own narrative arcs. Cheng Chao-an in Fists of Fury is fighting the urge to fight so he can be seen as a proper citizen. Dieyi from Farewell, My Concubine at first fights the urge to play a girl on stage, because he wants to be seen as a man, then fights to keep his spot in the sunlight. Jackie Chan’s character Wong Fei-Hung is forced, rather unwillingly to fight to regain honor and respect from the world so he might return home. Mark from A Better Tomorrow is determined to pull one last job, because he has fallen so far after being injured. Even woman are faced with this problem as well, Songlian the newest wife in Raise The Red Lantern has to fight for a perfect image. The idea of being perfect in the eyes of the world is at the route of these character’s motivations.  Their worlds range from large cities to an oppressive compound, but each has an audience for these people to perform their roles in front of, and if they fall from their pedestal they must fight tooth and nail to get back on top. By examining their individual journeys through each story one can see the pattern more clearly, each character fighting for their place on the stage of life.
            Cheng Chao-an in the beginning of Fists of Fury is a reformed young man. He has sworn to his family, on his honor, not to participate in another fight. He wears his mother’s locket as a reminder of that promise. As an adult he is expected to be loyal and perform as an upstanding gentleman. It is that fact, rolling around in his head, that keeps him nonviolent, though it seems to be a part of his nature, firmly rooted inside him. During his time with his cousins he looses more and more control over his actions. He gets cornered into fighting. Instead of being non-violent, it becomes imperative that he use violence. It is the only way he will survive.  When his cousins begin to disappear after going to meet the Big Boss he must make the choice to leave passivity behind. Stepping into a fight and saving his family from a brutal thrashing by the Boss’ men however, only garners him a position on the wrong side of the fight. Cheng is easily led astray, and falls from grace in a matter of speaking. He makes some bad choices while he’s drunk and afterward, when even more of his family disappears it becomes time for him to take a stand and face what is really being asked of him. Upon discovering what actually happened to the missing family members he’d been searching for, and the ones he left at home, Cheng is faced with the bloody truth. His honor has been compromised by not protecting his family. He hurt them by falling prey to manipulation. Revenge becomes his only option. Then for good measure he accepts that he must be taken away by the cops after killing all those people. He broke the law and fought, but regained his honor by taking revenge. He fulfilled his role and rose to the pedestal he was meant for. A hero, though only his love interest is left to praise him for it.
            Both Dieyi and Xiaolou of Farewell, My Concubine both provide interesting characters, bent on literally remaining on the stage, in the limelight.  Dieyi, however, is the better example when examining a character fighting to perfect their image for the world.  At a young age Dieyi is forced to become sexualized as a female, though he is in fact a male. His thin frame and feminine features do not help his case. Trained to play the Concubine he begins to exude that femininity in his everyday life. He learns his role and it becomes his life. It is everything to him, every part of him. Throughout the film there are continuous references to his need to be the Concubine, and play his role. Upon first seeing him as an adult, as a famous actor, everything about him, except his biological sex, screams female, the way he sits and the way he talks, all of it is the exact opposite of Xiaolou. He is his role; he is exactly what his audience wants him to be. But when his counterpart, Xiaolou fails to live up to his role, the pressure gets to Dieyi and it becomes too hard for him to keep up his high standards and remain on the stage. He cracks as times change and looses the person he was. At the end he is willing to die because his art was inevitably taken away from him. It was so essential to his life, that without it. Without being free to act, and for that matter act alongside Xiaolou he cannot go on. His not willing to die for his art, but forced to die because it has been taken from him, and he has no way to rise back to the person he once was.
            Songlian, from Raise The Red Lantern, is performing a similar dance on a much smaller stage. After her entering into her marriage with a stone face of blind acceptance she finds that she has given up her life as a student for a life of confinement and competition. At first she does not see the good at being chosen by the master, but soon, with so little an option she is forced to participate in the competition for affection. There is a very small stage within the compound and if she is not successful in garnering her husband’s attention, which often she is not, her world grows very lonely and dark. Her position is entirely unstable; the only stability she can find is by performing as the dutiful wife and getting the lanterns lit up in her portion of the massive home she is now resident in.  Success is marked by the lanterns. Her grey world only finds color outside her bedroom when the lanterns are lit. Everything is bathed in their light.  When she falls from grace and it is revealed she’s faked her pregnancy they cover her lanterns in black bags. Black is the utter absence of color. She is shunned and darkness over takes her part of the house.  After she goes mad, she even returns to her black and white attire she wore upon arrival. When she can no longer please, she must lose everything imaginable, without dying like the third wife.  She falls because she cannot rise to the challenge.
            Wong Fei-Hung from the drunken master and Mark from A Better Tomorrow are no different from the rest of these characters, but these two, start out on top of the world. They believe they have everything, but it’s a false victory. They are only in possession of a false kind of fame. Each of them actually runs before fulfilling their true goal, before stepping into the role they are supposed to play. Fei-Hung is a trickster kid, a bully. He even attacks his own aunt when she threatens his position on the top of his rag tag gang. He makes a fool out of his teacher before that. All of his actions lead him to being proverbially dethroned by his father. A fighting master is called upon to track Fei-Hung right from wrong, but he literally runs away causing even more trouble first. During his training he does everything he possibly can to avoid fully committing to his training. He first is forced to fall as far as he can. His father has kicked him out of his comfort zone and then he encounters Thunderleg who utterly humiliates him. Fei-Hung truly hits bottom. When he finally is shown the true reason of his training he does what he’s meant to do and learns the drunken fighting style. For the first time in his story he accepts the challenges set before him. All of this adventure culminating with a final battle, him vs. Thunderleg, the fighter who is trying to kill his father.  It is only by standing up, and regaining the honor of his family, is he found to be successful.
            A Better Tomorrow is a gangster’s story. Mark beings on top of the world with his partner at his side. They are powerful, but when they are double crossed, and Mark loses his partner, and then proceeds to lose his position among his peers he becomes virtually worthless. He is wounded and cannot even move like he used to. Based on his old job alone, Mark is a bad guy, but we feel sorry for him. The viewer is forced to pity him, because he has some redeeming qualities. When he finally gets the chance to regain some of his stature, pulling off a final job with his partner, he runs. He leaves Ho to die. The entire film is a series of events where Mark fails to step up in a good way, but it is at the end that he earns the viewer’s respect, when he steps up. When that boat turns around and he comes back to fight with his friends, we finally can like him through and through. He dies for his cause and earns our love.  Each of these characters is playing a role, and forced to live up to expectations in one form or another. They each follow their own narrative arcs to get to their individual ends, but each are forced to rise and fall. Songlian and Dieyi fall because they cannot be their versions of perfect. Everyone wants perfection, but perfection is not for everyone.