Eric's Beijing Diary

Watched a good movie in my Chinese class today. It is called, "Together." I had seen it before in the States before I came to China. I don't usually watch a movie more than once, and I have already seen this one twice, but I didn't mind, because I thought it wouldn't hurt me to see it without the English subtitles. Not only that, but here in China, many movies actually have Chinese subtitles. They don't do it for people like me; its done to accommodate the differing dialects in China. For example, Cantonese speakers and Mandarin speakers have essentially the same written language. But it really is handy for people like me, because it helps me to develop reading and listening skills in concert.

The story concerns a man from the countryside who brings his adopted son to Beijing for a violin competition, and follows this up with a determination to secure training from a master for his son. It's a story with interesting twists and turns, built around the plight of this good-hearted kid who was abandoned as a child, and adopted by a poor man from a village in the countryside.

There is one scene where the boy's second tutor is lecturing his students about the Cultural Revolution, and the fact that he had to hide in order to listen to Tchaikovsky in secret. The significance of this lecture was probably lost to most Americans who saw this movie, as I did, in an American theater. You have to watch the credits carefully (yes, I'm one of those), but if you do, you will notice that the script is written by the director (Chen Kai-ge), and that when he was casting the roles, he cast himself in the role of the second tutor. So what is really happening is that Chen Kai-ge, as a member, along with Zhang Yimou, of the "Fifth Generation" of Chinese film directors, is giving a message to the younger generation of artists about how precious was the art that they are so often prone to take for granted. Zhang Yimou actually sold his blood to buy a camera.

The first time I saw this movie, the theater in Scottsdale had relegated it to a small screening room. There were exactly three people in the theater when I walked in. Four of us watched the movie. As we left the theater, the others were talking. They were quite overwhelmed by the intensity of this film, wondering where it could have come from. Chen Kai-ge has been known for some time as the "bad boy" of Chinese film making. Ordinarily, I would not take my children to see his stuff. But this is a family movie. Unfortunately, movies with depth and meaning do not sell in a spiritually moribund culture like America, so this film was never a hit in the States. And after Ang Lee, the Taiwanese director, came out with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kai-ge decided to see if they could make some money too. I think it was a loss. But I won't go on and on about that. I really should watch some of those martial arts flicks first so that I can claim a higher level of objectivity. Somehow, I don't think my opinion will change. I took my niece (Melissa) to see this film. She said it was good. "Crazy good," she said. Listen to the wisdom of youth.