Anniversary of the best Chinese movie

On January 1, 1993 Kaige Chen's movie "Ba wang bie ji 霸王别姬 Farewell My Concubine" premiered in Hong Kong.

The film was based on a novel by Hong Kong writer Pik-Wah Lee, published in 1985 and becoming the second in the work of the writer. In 1988, the novel fell into the hands of a 35-year-old graduate of the Beijing Film Academy Kaige Chen, who by that time already had 4 films on his account. A native of a cinematic family, in the years of the so-called Cultural Revolution, Kaige Chen joined the Red Guards (Hongweibings) and disowned his father. Regrets about this act are reflected in the film. Kaige Chen, having become acquainted with the novel and thinking of making a film based on it, asked Pik-Wah Lee to make significant changes to the plot in the script. These plot changes were co-produced by Pik-Wah Lee with screenwriter Wei Lu.

On May 20, 1993, Kaige Chen's "Farewell My Concubine" was presented at the Cannes International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Palme d'Or (tied with Australian film "The Piano" by Jane Campion). Moreover, the film by Kaige Chen became the first Chinese film to be awarded this award. After that, on July 26 of the same year, the film premiered on the Chinese mainland, in Shanghai. But after 2 weeks the film was canceled. The reason for the film's ban is that, according to the censors, it shows too explicitly the homosexuality, suicide, and violence that was widespread under the communist government of Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution. By the way, one of the main roles in this film was offered to Jackie Chan, since he was also brought up in the Chinese Opera as a child, but he was afraid that participation in this film would negatively affect his reputation and his acting career, and refused.

Thanks to the victory in Cannes, the movie received wide international fame. The Chinese leadership realized that a censorship ban on an acclaimed film masterpiece could hurt China's bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics. In this regard, in September 1993, the film was released again in Chinese cinemas, but in an edited form: scenes related to the Cultural Revolution and homosexuality were cut out, and the suicide scene "was significantly softened." However, Chinese censorship was not the only one that subjected Kaige Chen's film to castration. Harvey Weinstein, a affectionate movie mogul, acquired the rights to show the film, cut about 20 minutes of screen time from it, and released it in this form in the fall of 1993 on cinema screens in the United States and Great Britain.

However, the admission of the picture "Farewell my concubine" in Chinese cinemas did not help the Chinese bid for the Summer Olympics. And then the film was again banned from cinemas in mainland China, and China had to wait another 8 years to get the right to host the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

And in Europe and America, Kaige Chen's film "Farewell My Concubine" was freely shown and participated in many international film festivals, receiving all kinds of awards. In early 1994, the film won the American Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Among his competitors in this nomination was Krzysztof Kieślowski's film "Three Colors: Blue". A little later, the film was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film. But the American Film Academy preferred the rather mediocre Spanish film "Belle Epoque" directed by Fernando Trueba to the Chinese film masterpiece. In the same 1994, the picture of Kaige Chen was awarded the BAFTA of the British Academy of Film. Among the competitors of the picture was the French film "Un Coeur en Hiver" directed by Claude Sautet. In the same 1994, Kaige Chen's film was nominated for the Cesar Award, but French film academics preferred the aforementioned "The Piano".

The release of Kaige Chen's "Farewell My Concubine" was universally accompanied by laudatory reviews from film critics. It is possible that a certain role in the enthusiastic reception of this Chinese film masterpiece by the Western audience was played by its position as a persecuted work. Roger Ebert, who awarded the film a maximum of 4 stars, wrote in his review dated 10/29/1993: "What is amazing, given the conditions under which the film was made, is the freedom and energy with which it plays. The story is almost unbelievably ambitious, using no less than the entire modern history of China as its backdrop, as the private lives of the characters reflect their changing fortunes: The toast of the nation at one point, they are homeless outcasts at another, and nearly destroyed by their political naivete more than once."

James Berardinelli gave this characterization to the film: "It's no wonder that this film was initially banned in China (although the government eventually relented and there was one showing; more may be forthcoming). The Communist movement is not shown in a positive light. While not specifically a force for evil, Communist attitudes contribute to one of the movie's most emotionally-shocking scenes. Those unfamiliar with twentieth-century Chinese history are in for a crash course. No film can ever hope to convey the complex mosaic of cultural upheaval caused by everything that happened between 1924 and 1977, but Farewell My Concubine does an excellent job presenting samples of the flavor while telling a story that is both epic and intimate."

However, not only Western film critics sang an ode to this creation of Kaige Chen. One of the most respected Russian film critics Sergey Kudryavtsev spoke about the film in such a way: “the film cannot but amaze with the richness of fine culture, the art of singing and choreography of the East ... as well as the subtlety and delicacy of psychological nuances in the analysis of relationships in an unconventional love triangle."

Cinema-goers around the world have also warmly received Chen Kaige's film. More than 82% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated it 8 or higher. A clear success with the audience can be considered the fact that 1.26 million Americans, who are generally not able to perceive films not in English and without American actors, watched this film.

Based on the above figures, Kaige Chen's movie "Ba wang bie ji 霸王别姬 Farewell My Concubine" was rated 10,229 by FilmGourmand, making it 30th in the Golden Thousand. And this is the highest place among the 15 Chinese films included in the Golden Thousand.