I learned from the (limited—not that
I really cared) special features on the Mega Star DVD release of Hark Tsui’s Peking Opera Blues (1986) that upon the
film’s initial U.S. run it garnered the high praise of the Village Voice, which said it “out Spielberg’s Spielberg.” While retrospect makes this comment seem
silly at best, and while it was over-zealous even in its time, I can at least
say I understand why the reviewer makes the comparison to the Indiana Jones
director. Indeed, Peking Opera Blues capitalizes on the Action Adventure/Comedy trend
that the Jones films spawned, but for my taste this picture relies far too
heavily on the latter element of that genre mash up.
Through well-imagined—if not
necessarily well shot—fight sequences, the film follows the story of five revolutionaries
brought together amidst the chaos of the Chinese warlord conflicts of the
1910s. Though these characters’
motivations vary drastically, they find themselves each drawn into a plot
revolving around an envelope of military dispatches. These papers are the classic MacGuffin, and
their content is utterly unimportant to the story. What does come to matter are the
relationships between three women and two men (a rare gender pairing in the
movies if ever there was one) who fight to capture them before they can be
delivered.
Emerging as the strongest character
in the bunch is Tsao Wan (Brigitte Lin), the daughter of a general whose forces
invade the city. In secret, she works as
an agent against her father, almost all the while keeping close by his
side. Dressing in masculine clothes, her
gender bending brings to the forefront the subtext of gender issues present
throughout the film. Also pointing to
these issues is the character Pat Neil (Sally Yeh), who longs to be an
acrobatic performer in her father’s all-male theatre troupe. The two women encounter each other at the
opera house where the troupe performs, as it is often used as a meeting place
in plain sight by the underground forces.
The third primary female drawn into the plot is Sheung Hung (Cherie
Chung), a musician who is in hot pursuit of a jewel box looted from the
previous warlord as he fled Peking. The
Jewels also end up at the opera house, mistaken for costume pieces and become
Sheung’s initial reason for involvement.
These three women are joined by two men, one a prominent figure in the
underground, the other a bumbling soldier of the old regime who mostly
functions as comic relief and the obligatory injury prone member of the
crew.
These character dynamics are
important, not inasmuch as they affect the story, but rather that they altogether
replace a confusing and lackluster plot. Peking
Opera Blues basically boils down to an old-fashioned white hats vs. black
hats serial that completely skips over the underlining motivations of either
side. Here we know that Tsao and Pat are
driven to defy their fathers, and that Sheung is out for the money, but the
political context of all of the conflict involved isn’t really touched on. There are exciting fights with interesting choreography,
gunplay, and beautiful women and that’s about it.
Tsui’s
film is kind of a no-brainer as films go.
Is it fun? Yes. Is it
overambitious in scope? Perhaps, but maybe to its benefit. Is it moving? Not really, but for Saturday entertainment
it’s decent and it far outshines many kung fu pictures in that regard. It doesn’t have the production value (that
Spielberg touch) of the Hollywood pictures that no doubt inspired its
style. It does, however, present three
female characters that combined are almost as interesting as Marion Ravenwood. That’s certainly not knocking it out of the
park as far as film standards go, but it outdoes many of its stateside
contemporaries in that respect.
Language:
Cantonese
Runtime:
102 Minutes
Grade:
2 Hats Off
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