Shanghai Triad
Zhang Yimou, Hong Kong, 1995, 108 mins; Electric/Polygram Video (as 2003)
Review by Gerald Houghton (1996)

Being the most famous of 'Fifth Generation' Chinese directors ensures that any new film from Zhang Yimou is immediate international news. Unfortunately for him, in hindsight his last -- To Live -- was a little more newsworthy than he might have wanted. It played Cannes without official Chinese permission and for its troubles delivered even heavier restrictions on its director than that notoriously autocratic society had previously imposed. In addition to which, the long-time romance between the director and his star, Gong Li (this is their fifth film together) fell apart. Problems, problems, but Shanghai Triad remains, if not Yimou's best, then still a very considerable achievement.

It's set over eight days in the opium racketeering Shanghai of the 1930s. Shuisheng (Wan Xiaoxiao) is a young country boy brought to the city by his uncle to serve Bijou (Li), a brassy nightclub singer and mistress to Tang (Li Baotian, excellent), the bald, insectoid local gang boss. Behind the big man's back she is seeing Song (Sun Chun), one of his trusted lieutenants, while rival gangs make moves to usurp Tang's territory. A homicidal attack on the Boss's house forces the inner guard to retire to a small island off the coast to await an inevitable showdown.

Seen mainly through the boy's eyes, Yimou's is more a quiet, contemplative film than the oriental Godfather its plot suggests; it has more in common in tone (and, oddly, story) with Takeshi Kitano's marvellous Sonatine. The film moves from the opulence and theatre of its opening -- Gong Li's flamboyant stage act and the grandeur of labyrinthine houses -- to the relative calm and austerity of the island. Most of its power derives not from operatic set-pieces but slow deliberation. Indeed, seen through the boy's eyes, what action there is takes place largely off-screen. The assault on the Boss's house is realised almost entirely through frenzied sound and a distorted shadow-play on frosted windows. Shuisheng's gradual discovery of the aftermath is bloodily effective. The cinematography is intricately colour-coded with hellish, fiery reds and watery blues.

The ingenuity of Bi Feiyu's script (from the novel Gang Law by Li Xiao) lies in switching sympathies between its central players. As much as events unfold from Shuisheng's point of view, his bumpkin naivety is never allowed to monopolise. Gong Li (one of the world's finest actresses in any language) takes Bijou from hard bitch through sympathetic confidant of the widow who lives on the island. For all their intimacy, she is as temporary in the Boss's affections as anything else in his vast empire. Her theme song is called 'Pretending' and even she realises eventually that everything can be replaced. There is a genuine pathos in her relations with the widow's young daughter.

All this has to have a point, and the dying minutes of Shanghai Triad are terrible indeed. The Boss's ruthless cruelty knows no bounds, and in the final moments Shuisheng's view of the world is literally turned upside-down.

A relatively minor entry in Yimou's considerable canon (Raise The Red Lantern, Red Sorghum, The Story of Qui Ju) but this film also represents his most accessible work to a general western audience. Besides which, even minor Yimou is more interesting than most, especially when what most know of Hong Kong cinema are the ghastly am-dram bullet-fests of the John Woo. A substantial and intriguing feast.