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• 1 2023-08-08T13:35:12+00:00 The Peony Pavilion
  遊園驚夢 (2001) 25 plain 2025-01-28T16:36:48+00:00

  Live Action Feature Film

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  LINKS TO THE FILM

  • The film's trailer with English subtitles (20th anniversary in 4K restoration) on YouTube.
  • The WorldCat listing for the film's DVD:
    • Yon Fan 楊凡, dir. Youyuan jingmeng 遊園驚夢 (The Peony Pavilion). Hong Kong: Far Sun Film Co., 2001. DVD.

  INFORMATION

  • Title: Peony Pavilion 遊園驚夢
  • Year: 2001
  • Writer and Director: Yon Fan 楊凡
  • Producer: Ann Hui 許鞍華
  • Cast:  Joey Wang 王祖賢 (as Rong Lan), Rie Miyazawa 宮澤理惠 (as Jade Cui Hua), Daniel Wu 吳彥祖 (as Xing Zhigang), Zhigang Zhao 趙志剛 (as the butler), Brigitte Lin 林青霞 (as Narrator) 
  • Kunqu Singing and Performance: Wang Fengxian 王奉先 (as Rong Lan, Joey Wang’s character), Yang Juan 楊娟 (now Yang Kun 楊崑, as Jade, Rie Miyazawa’s character), Xiang Weidong 項衛東
  • Original music: Anthony Lun 倫永亮
  • Kunqu music: Yunqing Ye 葉雲青
  • Languages:  Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, with English and Japanese subtitles 
  • Duration: 126 minutes  

  INTRODUCTION

  
  Peony Pavilion was a 2001 film production directed by Yonfan, who was born in Wuhan, brought up in Taiwan, and is now living in Hong Kong. The film stars Joey Wang, Rie Miyazawa, and Daniel Wu, telling a queer love story in a well-off family in 1930s Suzhou. On the one hand, the film is inspired by the director’s love for Kunqu, a passion “ignited with The Palace of Eternal Life (Changsheng dian 長生殿).” (“Peony Pavilion [4K Restored Version]: Programme”, 2022).  On the other hand, Yonfan likens the two actresses to “Bette Davis and Joan Crawford… great stars forgotten by their audiences” and treats this film as his “tribute...and devotion to the last glamour of Hollywood” (Corliss, “Lost Romantic,” 2001). The film won a Best Actress Award (Rie Miyazawa) and the International Film Critics Award at the 23^rd Moscow International Film Festival in 2001.

  PLOT SUMMARY

  The story takes place in a well-off house in 1930s Suzhou. Jade (Rie Miyazawa), a young singing courtesan of a brothel named the Moon-lit Chamber, marries into the Rong family, but her husband master Rong, an opium smoker, treats her no more than as a pretty pet. While the butler of the house (Zhigang Zhao) secretly admires Jade, she develops an ambiguous relationship with a female cousin of the family, Rong Lan (Joey Wang), who is also a Kunqu aficionado. With their shared love for Kunqu performance and the happy memories they create together, their affection towards each other grows. Rong Lan’s obsession with Jade, however, is challenged when Xing Zhigang (Daniel Wu), a healthy, westernized manly man, shows up in her life. In the end, with the butler’s death and Xing’s departure, the two women reconfirm where their hearts truly belong. 

  VIDEO CLIPS: The Function of the Kunqu Performance Within the Film

  The Kunqu performance contributes to the “all the world’s a stage” 人生如戲 and “life is like a floating dream” 浮生若夢 sentiments of the film. At the same time, it is not a mere cultural spectacle. Instead, the Kunqu performance is vital to the film’s plot development. The affection between the two female characters, Jade and Rong Lan, is nurtured through their singing of arias from Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting 牡丹亭), a chuanqi masterpiece written by Tang Xianzu 湯顯組 (1550-1616), one of the greatest playwrights in Chinese history. For Kunqu connoisseurs, the arias interwoven in the film foreshadow the ups and downs in the relationship between the two women. They also guide the audience into the inner worlds of the characters, providing confirmation of and annotations to their unspoken feelings. All translations below are taken from the film’s English subtitles.
   
    Nameless Kunqu performers act as characters in Peony Pavilion, 00:02:00-00:04:44
  On a spring night, in the exquisite garden of the Rong house, three Kunqu performers perform the parts of Du Liniang, Liu Mengmei, and Chunxiang, the three main characters of Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion. These performances gradually lead us to enter the lives of Jade and Rong Lan. This scene points to the significance of Peony Pavilion in this film, while also setting “the world is a stage” as a leitmotif for the film.
   
   
  Jade and Rong Lan sing To the tune “Zao luopao” 【皂羅袍】 and To the tune “Shantao hong” 【山桃紅】 on Master Rong’s birthday, 00:04:44-00:09:35
  
  After the Kunqu performers enter the house, Jade makes her debut, singing To the tune “Zao luopao” (sung by Yang Juan). One of the most famous lines from the aria, “see how spring blossoms have yielded their beauty only to the dry well and these crumbled walls 原來姹紫嫣紅開遍，似這般都付予斷井頹垣” mirrors her life story of having gone from being a courtesan to a lonely, neglected concubine. It also foreshadows the eventual decline of the seemingly prosperous Rong family. 
  
  Rong Lan (sung by Wang Fengxian) joins the performance halfway and sings “How can I not be enchanted 奈何天?” with Jade. The aria is followed by two lines from To the tune “Shantao hong,” “It seems we’ve met before and beheld each other in solemn awe. Words are not needed in such beautiful silence 是那處曾相見？相看儼然，早難道好處相逢無一言.” The singing gives the audience a hint about the destined love between the two as the story unfolds. 
   
   
  Rong Lan dressed as Liu Mengmei sings To the tune “Shantao hong” on Jade’s birthday, 00:17:32-00:20:58 
  
  After Jade mentions what she wants the most is to have someone who cares about her and thinks of her, Rong Lan decides to give her a birthday surprise. With full-face makeup and wearing the young male role (xiaosheng 小生) costume, Rong Lan chants and sings as Liu Mengmei, with lines such as “Young lady, it is so natural that I have fallen in love with you 啊姐姐！小生哪一處不尋到，卻在這裡。姐姐，咱一片閒情，愛煞你哩.” Interestingly, the erotic part of the original aria in the chuanqi play is left out in the film, leading to multiple readings of the relationship between the two female characters.
   
   
  Jade sings To the tune “Bubu jiao” 【步步嬌】 upon Master Rong’s request, 00:26:38-00: 30:05 
  
  During Jade’s beautiful singing, a servant comes to Master Rong and offers him a white parrot. Master Rong enjoys the parrot and decides to keep it. The scene alludes to Jade’s situation in the house, not as a person who is loved but kept as a pet or as a doll.
   
   
  A flashback of Jade and Rong Lan singing To the tune “Lan huamei” 【懶畫眉】 when they first met, 00:41:42-00:46:16 
  In this scene, Rong Lan dresses as a man and accompanies her cousin to the Moon-lit Chamber. Jade, back then a courtesan there, sings “so much ennui is stirred up by this year’s scenes of spring 最撩人春色是今天.” Rong Lan joins in with the line “falling blossoms, like spring’s yearnings, are floating everywhere. My heart is like the wild rose that gets caught in my dress and cannot let go （原來）春心無處不下懸。是睡荼蘼抓住裙釵線，恰便是花似人心向好處牽.” The lines attest to what Rong Lan has confessed in the previous scene, namely that she has been attracted to Jade since their very first meeting and has not been able to let go of her fascination. 
   
   
  A martial role sings To the tune “Dian jiangchun” 【點絳唇】from the play Lin Chong’s Night Escape 林沖夜奔, 00:54:10-00:57:16 
  
  As the only aria does not derive from Peony Pavilion, To the tune “Dian jiangchun” betrays a sense of crisis. “Oh, where should I go to seek rescue 那搭兒相求救?” The line suggests the Rong family is in sudden decline, while also making the two characters aware that their feelings for each other go beyond kinship and friendship. It foreshadows the upcoming changes in their lives as they both try to escape from these scary and overwhelming emotions. 
   
   
  Rong Lan seeks to determine where her love truly lies with non-diegetic singing of To the tune “Lan huamei”, 1:45:28-1:49:04 
  
  After a long absence, Kunqu performance is reintroduced into the film as Jade finally discovers the affair between Rong Lan and Xing Zhigang. With the non-diegetic singing of “My heart is like the wild rose that gets caught in my dress and cannot let go” in the background, Rong Lan realizes that her heart belongs to “the wild rose,” thus redirecting her affections to Jade instead of Xing Zhigang. 
   
   
  Jade and Rong Lan recall their happiest day with non-diegetic singing of To the tune “Zao luopao” in the background, 1:57:21-1:58:51 
  
  At the end of the film, Jade and Rong Lan decide to “let everything come to a pass” and recall the happiest day of their lives, that is, Jade’s birthday. With non-diegetic singing of To the tune “Zao luopao,” the two characters confirm their affection for each other and experience love and joy without limits, as if they are Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei in the famous dream of The Peony Pavilion.  

  WORKS CONSULTED: CLICK TO EXPAND

  Corliss, Richard. “Lost Romantic.” Time, October 29, 2001. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,180571,00.html

  Hong Kong Film Archive, “Peony Pavilion (4K Restored Version) (Programme).” https://www.filmarchive.gov.hk/en_US/web/hkfa/pe-event-2022-avday2022-fs-film01.html

  Yonfan Studio. “Peony Pavilion.” http://www.yonfan.com/movies10.html

  AUTHOR

  Hui Yao