Master For All Seasons | Lam Ching Ying 林正英

Red And Black - review by Lily Wang

The International title "Red And Black" is quite different from its original title "Gui Gan Bu"-which means a ghost cadre. I only had a skim when first hit into the movie. Backgrounded in the period of Cultural Revolution, I felt unconsciously resist to the work. The most powerful motivation for me to start watching is due to the appearance of Lam Ching Ying. Lam, who has set up an unique mold of Maoist, is noted for his vampire movie, which influenced at least two generations of China from 80s to 90s, especially in HK. Therefore, I instinctively refused the opening of the movie, in which I had expected to be a masterpiece of a vampire movie. Disappointed by the prologue, it was natual for me to press the "fast forward" bottom on the DVD player.

Later, I realized I made a terrible mistake in skimming this motional picture. Many mates of mine had recommended the value of the "Red And Black". Although unwilled, I was magically attracted by its International title. What does the Red mean? What is the Black aimed for? There must be something profound to be revealed. With this mystery, I was motivated to watch it again.

First of all, a brief introduction of the Cultural Revolution will be necessary. Once upon a time of China, the nation was dominated by the power of Chairman Mao, who is considered the deity rather than the mankind. His portrait was posted in the center of every family instead of any Buddha. For a kind of reason, maybe political, he announced that a cultural revolution was necessary-even nowadays, there is no specific definition for the "Cultural Revolution". However, the situation of the society at that period (1966-1976) somehow disclosed the conception. Class struggle had been expanded that whoever againsted the labor class would be the public enemy and must be eliminated. Nevertheless, who was the person to decide whether someone was an enemy? The class conception had been exaggerated by some political speculateors. Youngsters were misled and easily agitated by those people. They didn't go to school any longer, instead they devoted to the "class struggle"every day! The whole society was in a total mess. Any evil quality of human beings had been released during that moment, which extremely destroyed the usual order of the community.

Thus, we might understand those lenses when son denied the relationship with his father, leading those "Revolutionary Guards" fight with his own dad. At that time, if someone was considered a public enemy, his relatives and friends had to accuse him no matter whether the one was a real enemy or not, otherwise they also might be thought as enemies. In "Red And Black", Tony Leung had a good understanding of that situation. To save himself and his mother, he had no choice but to beat his father accusing him.

Tragedy is the theme of the period. Red, a mixture of passion and sadness, is the present of revolution. And it is red that is the keynote of the whole story. On the other hand, the most obvious clue is the blood, another form of the color red. To win the struggle, the cost is bleeding. However, the director brillantly injected a vampire theme out of the blood to ease the oppressive political atmosphere.

I cannot ever miss the chance to express my appreciation on Wu Ma’s performance. He acted as a small potato in the movie searching every chance to survival in the crazy political tidal wave. I even do not blame him when seeing him doing any tricks on the others to save his own life. A woeful role…

Tony Leung and Lam Ching Ying were banished one after another working in a quarry. In another words, the main story has just started there. Wong Joey was the daughter of a cadre. Tony had a crush on Joey. However, he once had fought with her father in public. Evils came out processing its power on the cadre when it is the turning point of the narration.

The cadre then began killing the forces that was seemed threatening to him with the purpose of lanuching the power of the evils. Tony’s mother was about to leave the world. She told the story of killing the evils done by fathers of Tony and Lam. The evils processed Lam’s father so that one must kill another to stop the evils with the help of a nail. After handing a map to them, on which it showed the position of the evil, the mother died.

Tony fell in love with Joey. In the cultural revolutionary period, any lovers who dared to talk about love in public were thought to be revisionismists that should be punished. Therefore, we might understand the hidden love represented in the movie. Counterpartly, in modern time of China, valentines are able to express their feelings in public. Personally, I would love to see those hidden loves represented in this movie. Few words but eye contact, in which tells more about a person’s soul and his inner mentality.

There’re few fighting in the movie. I had been excepting Lam Ching Ying might not let me down in performing his talent in fighting in any movie. Reviews I read before had hardly good comment on the fighting part in “Black And White”. However, in my view, action lenses are realistic in this work. Three boys fought with Lam and he seemed in dire straits fighting against them. Personally, the pain revealed on Lam’s face in fighting did not ever make me sad for his helplessness, but offered me a real fighting. Let us go back to the real world, no one is able to easily deal with three at a time. Reality is another theme of this movie.

Harmonica is an important clue to express dramatis personae’s hidden love and it is the very prop that shocked me, moved me and touched me most in the movie and the greatest motivation for me to write down this comment. The first time the harmonica appeared was when Joey played it in Tony’s home where Lam was there too, before the very moment of the mother’s death. As a matter of fact, audience won’t feel light-hearted until this scene came into our scale of view. The two male dramatis personae were both attracted by the lady when seeing her playing. Although we may easily judge that Joey is not a professional harmonica player, it does not matter at all for us to appreciate the gentle facial emotions on the two men, who received a bit of fresh air during the heavy-fisted extreme political period. As far as I am concerned, Lam’s here acting skill impressed so much. He measured an excellent feeling of the role in expressing his way of love. Here is my favorite capture.

The second scene of the harmonica came where Lam played himself. The theme not only expressed his adoration to Joey, but also a mixture feeling of helplessness and firmness.

To rescue Joey’s life from the control of the evils, Lam even would like to contribute the chance of being alive. The harmonica dropped onto the ground on the moment when Lam was almost about to bomb himself, until which minute realized the love Lam had, Joey found her helpless in shouting to him again and again…

It is the end of the story that reminds me the “Black”-dark, deem, and suffocating and unretrieval of the life. Generally speaking, “Red And Black” may be an ordinary movie for its artistic merit, however, it did impress me a lot. As I knew, the movie has once been banned in mainland China because of its political theme so that I did not get an opportunity to watch it until recent days. Although folks in HK somehow exaggerate or misunderstood kind of nouns and some conceptions in the Cultural Revolution, it does not prevent us to appreciate the movie itself.

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