JU DOU
With Gong Li, Li Baotian, Li Wei, Zhang Yi, and Zheng Jian.
The problem with such comparisons is that they obscure considerably more than they clarify, by boiling down a story to what we already know and discarding or minimizing the rest. To give some idea of what is being discarded and minimized, a fairly detailed synopsis of Ju Dou is necessary (readers who’d prefer to see the film before hearing the whole story are invited to take their leave at any point). Considering that the film was recently nominated for an Academy Award (the first time a Chinese-language film has ever been nominated) and that the Chinese government, which has prevented the film from showing publicly in China, also tried unsuccessfully to have the nomination withdrawn, it’s important to try to understand not only what it means to us, but also what it means to–and for–China.
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After the doctor announces that Jinshan is paralyzed from the waist down, Ju Dou and Tianqing become more open with him about their relationship, though the social front all three characters present to the village remains the same. After Ju Dou angrily tells Jinshan that Tianqing is the baby’s father, Jinshan tries to kill Tianbai. Another crucial difference between Tianqing and his counterpart in The Postman Always Rings Twice is then revealed: Tianqing is unwilling to murder his boss and uncle, despite Ju Dou’s expressed desire that he do so; the most he can do is threaten, “If you touch my son again, you’ll see what happens.”
Tianbai–who, it is clear by now, despises both his parents–is declared Jinshan’s sole heir by the village elders. There is gossip by now about the adulterous relationship, and the elders rule that Tianqing move out of the house and that Ju Dou be forbidden to remarry. The disgraced Ju Dou and Tianqing stand apart from the villagers during the funeral procession (whether this is because of their infidelity or traditional is not clear), though both of them make public displays of grief and even lie under the coffin as it’s being carried. Tianbai sits on top of it.
I’ve given such a detailed synopsis to establish the links of the major characters with the village, which most American reviews I’ve read–as well as the synopsis provided by the distributor–have overlooked. Without this context, a comparison with The Postman Always Rings Twice might seem at least halfway viable; with it, such a comparison no longer seems relevant. Feudalism is a key concept in the history of China, but in an American context it has virtually no meaning at all. When Zhang Yimou remarks that Ju Dou’s relative slowness to rebel against her condition, as well as Tianqing’s sense of abasement and fidelity toward his uncle, “is the result of thousands of years of Confucian education” and a “lack of confidence in relation to one’s ego,” he’s alluding to a history and a social meaning that simply can’t be translated into American equivalents. Jinshan’s feudal ownership of Ju Dou and Tianqing and the dye factory, which is eventually inherited by his legal son, is accorded a social sanction that effectively makes any escape impossible. Even the fact that Tianbai is responsible for Jinshan’s death can’t break the chain of tradition that winds up crippling everyone, including Tianbai; his social and historical birthright ultimately overrides even his biological birthright, and the passion that produces him ultimately consumes him. The accidental death of his false father leads inexorably to the murder of his real father, just as Jinshan’s attempt to destroy the factory by fire is ultimately fulfilled by Ju Dou, the character who hates him and what he stands for the most.
