Starring: Tang Wei, Feng Shaofeng, Wang Zhiwen, Zhu Yawen Director: Ann Hui

    “Lust, Caution” actress Tang Wei stars in this unconventional biopic of Chinese writer Xiao Hong from director Ann Hui.

    THE eventful life of female Chinese novelist, poet and essayist Xiao Hong, who died in 1942 at age 32, is the nominal subject of “The Golden Era,” the new film from veteran Hong Kong director Ann Hui, whose last film, “A Simple Life,” impressed with its apparent simplicity and warmth. This is not the case in her latest film, which is not a conventional biopic, as Hui and Chinese star screenwriter Li Qiang attempt something bolder, having many of the fictional versions of the characters directly address the audience to introduce slightly differing accounts of their memories of the writer. It’s a gamble that only partially works and makes this three-hour period film even more rarefied for audiences unfamiliar with its subject.

    The film declares its intentions right from the outset, opening with a black-and-white shot of Xiao Hong (Tang Wei, “Lust, Caution”), who directly addresses the audience, stating her name and when and where she was born and died. Crucially, it is the only time Xiao herself breaks the fourth wall, as for the rest of the film this honor falls to those around her, with her family members and friends recounting memories involving Xiao that subsequently play out in short scenes that feel more like a traditional biopic.

    Especially in the film’s first half-hour, there are a lot of these direct-to-camera introductions, which are necessary to present the various speakers. But there’s a major disadvantage here as well, as Xiao Hong herself remains something of a cipher for much too long in her own film, being talked about by others but not being allowed to simply be experienced without any direct filter, so the audience can make up its own mind about her.

    Xiao (real name: Zhang Naiying) fled from a difficult childhood in Manchuria, where her mother committed suicide because of her abusive father. Early on, her younger brother (Ling Zhengui) recounts a chance meeting with his sibling after she escaped the household, when she was scraping by alone in the city of Harbin (their encounter would later become the basis of her story “Early Winter”).

    The arranged marriage Xiao was trying to escape got her into more trouble when the man (Yuan Wenkang) she didn’t want to marry finally left her with an enormous hotel bill she couldn’t afford, with the hotel proprietor threatening to sell her to a brothel to pay her bills. Desperate, she pens a letter to the International Gazette paper pleading for help, and is thus introduced to a circle of writers, including the oft-drunk but kind writer Xiao Jun (Feng Shaofeng). He pushed her to continue writing and would become the love of her life, even if their love was the kind of explosive union that could neither be apart nor ever make it work together.

    Xiao Jun’s memories of Hong are colored not only by his strong feelings for her but also by his age. He wrote her letters when they were together but physically separated, which led to various dalliances for both with further complicated their rapport, but also wrote about her much later in life. How this might have influenced his writing is suggested in a simple but very effective sequence in which the film juxtaposes Jun’s rather simple account of his final breakup with Xiao Hong with that of the only man Hong would eventually marry, Duanmu Hongliang (Zhu Yawen), who’s version is more elaborate and paints Xiao Jun in a not altogether positive light.

    It seems appropriate, seeing how most of her peers praise her writing for its emotional lucidity, that Xiao’s complicated love life is such a major part of the story. One of the film’s most extraordinary scenes is Xiao Hong’s blisteringly honest wedding speech, which acknowledges her ties to Xiao Jun in front of her now-husband Duanmu, relates the prosaic circumstances under which the newlyweds met and details her complete lack of expectations for their union. Often a plaything in the memories of others, Tang sores in this particular scene, conveying such emotional honesty and not-all-that-quiet heartbreak that even those who have never read anything by her will come away with the sense she’s got a way with words that’s both insightful about the human condition and heartrending for her personally.

    The movie is being screened in Shenzhen.

    (SD-Agencies)