The King of Masks (1999) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a wonderfully intelligent and heart-warming work. I thoroughly thoroughly recommend it. Set in a beautifully-evoked Sichuan province (watch for guest appearances by the Giant Buddha of Emei Shan) in China during the 1930s, Wu Tianming's beautifully delineated movie tells the story of Wang Bianlian, played by the veteran Xu Zhu, an aging street performer who buys a young boy, Gou-er (translated as "Doggie" in the subtitles). Gou-er (luminously portrayed by an absolutely fabulous Zhou Renying) is to be Old Wang's heir as the old man seeks to pass on his family secrets as a master of "changing face" theater.
This situation needs a little explaining for modern western audiences. Many times in Chinese history there were awful famines or economic depressions where families faced starvation and destitution. This was particularly true in the late Republican period when civil war added yet another level of problems for ordinary Chinese people. In these circumstances, desperate families sometimes resorted to selling some or all of their children to wealthy families. Often these children would be brought up as virtual slaves, especially if they were girls.
Gou-er is a pet name. Chinese children were often given these names instead of real ones until they were old enough to be fairly assured of living to be adults. This practice stemmed from the folk belief that the lurking demons that populated the Chinese landscape (particularly in natural areas such as rivers, woods and mountains) would be fooled into thinking that the child was worthless if their family referred to them as "Stinky" or "Idiot" –or "Little Dog", and so would not attempt to steal the child or kill it.
Old Wang needs a boy because according to Confucian tradition, he cannot pass the knowledge on to a girl since daughters or grand daughters were not considered to be permanent members of one's family in traditional Chinese society. Women were brought up to be married out to other families. The men were the ones who stayed within the family and maintained the family resources. Usually this meant land for peasants, but for the rich it meant wealth and for performers like Old Wang, it meant the secrets of the trade. For this reason, I must take issue with Laura Mirsky's editorial review which infers that the famous cross-dressing opera star Luo Sulan (ably played by Zhang Zhigang) was unsuitable as an heir because he portrayed women on stage.
While it is true that Chinese society is conventionally very homophobic, and Luo Sulan is certainly portrayed as a rather effeminate young man, the larger obstacle (and this is important since it is another example of Confucian tradition at work) was that Luo was not a member of Old Wang's family. "Changing face" was a family tradition and could not be handed on to anyone who was an outsider. Luo's status as a man who plays women on stage would not have been an issue in and of itself since this was the norm in Chinese opera of the time. As in Shakespearean England, women were not allowed to perform as actors so all the female roles were played by men (see also the wonderful Chen Kaige movie "Farewell My Concubine").
This movie deals with issues of family, loyalty, love and tradition. It is an overt critique of traditional Chinese society but is also a pointed (though gentle) indictment of the resurgence of some of these Confucian values in modern China following the economic boom of the eighties and nineties...

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An elderly street performer is offered a chance to practice his art with the Peking Opera. He refuses, wanting only to pass the tradition onto an hier of male descent. One night he is sold a boy only to find out later that the child is a girl.Genre: Foreign Film - ChineseRating: UNRelease Date: 7-MAR-2000Media Type: DVD

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