Sacrifice

赵氏孤儿

China, 2010, colour, 2.35:1 , 126 mins.

Director: Chen Kaige 陈凯歌.

Rating: 7/10.

Involving drama of powerplay and revenge in Ancient China sports some great performances.

STORY

Jin state, China, Spring and Autumn Period, 6th century BC. Veteran general Tu’an Gu (Wang Xueqi) has been sidelined at the court of Duke Ling (Peng Bo) by the Zhao family, led by Minister Zhao Dun (Bao Guoan) and his son, General Zhao Shuo (Zhao Wenzhuo). Zhao Shuo has married the duke’s elder sister, Princess Zhuang (Fan Bingbing), whom Tu’an Gu had once set his eyes on, and now the princess is pregnant, cementing the Zhaos’ bond with the Lings. Zhao Shuo returns victorous from a war and, during the court celebrations, Tu’an Gu executes an elaborate plan in which the duke is murdered and blame is shifted on to the Zhaos. In the immediate chaos, the entire Zhao family is slaughtered by Tu’an Gu and his supporters. Distraught by her husband’s death, the princess prematurely gives birth to a son under the supervision of her doctor, Cheng Ying (Ge You). Sent by Tu’an Gu to kill the child, Zhao supporter Han Jue (Huang Xiaoming) is persuaded by the princess to let Cheng Ying take it to safety. After telling him to deliver the baby to a Zhao family friend, Gong Sun Chujiu (Zhang Fengyi), she commits suicide. While Tu’an Gu and his troops search the city for the baby, Cheng Ying temporarily takes it to his home and convinces his wife (Hai Qing) to switch it for their own newly born son to ensure the survival of the royal baby. Though Cheng Ying eventually loses his wife and own son, the ruse works. With a long-term plan for revenge, Cheng raises the child as if it was his own, right under Tu’an Gu’s nose.

REVIEW

Stuffed with some of the best male acting talent in China, Sacrifice 赵氏孤儿 is the best film by veteran director Chen Kaige 陈凯歌 in at least a decade – and, like his earlier costume drama The Emperor and the Assassin 荆轲刺秦王 (1998), sometimes a great one. Based on a Yuan dynasty play (The Great Revenge of the Orphan of Zhao Family 赵氏孤儿大报仇) attributed to Ji Junxiang 纪君祥 – who used a real-life incident recorded in the historical annals Shiji 史记 by Sima Qian 司马迁 – the movie is set several hundred years before Emperor but with its plot involving court powerplay, deception and assassination it has much the same atmosphere in a more compact, reduced form. Though the movie never feels like an adaptation of a play, it’s basically a series of powerfully acted confrontations, a long-limbed cat-and-mouse game between a wily physician and a ruthless general, superbly played by Ge You 葛优 (If You Are the One 非诚勿染, 2008), with only flickers of his trademark ironic humour, and Wang Xueqi 王学圻 (Reign of Assassins 剑雨, 2010), who not for the first time almost takes over a movie with a portrayal of pure power and ambition.

Unlike Zhang Yimou 张艺谋, Chen has never mastered the trick of presenting intimate personal dramas on a large stage, starting with Farewell My Concubine 霸王别姬 (1993) and continuing through other his other period and costume spectacles Temptress Moon 风月 (1996), The Promise 无极 (2005) and Forever Enthralled 梅兰芳 (2008), all of which had major structural problems. He came closest to marrying spectacle and intimacy in Emperor, but in Sacrifice he comes closest of all, with the production and costume design, plus occasional large-scale moments, always at the service of the drama rather than just to impress. The film’s biggest flaw is its occasional lapses in tone: for a movie which is grounded in a kind of realism, the action scenes are too fantastically choreographed and with no real power, and moments of almost knockabout humour – the princess, played by Fan Bingbing 范冰冰, slipping on some fish and flying into the air – seem better suited to a Cantonese comedy.

The well-crafted script packs in a huge amount of background and detail – especially in the opening half-hour, which includes a whole assassination plot and its execution, plus the parallel story of the physician – before getting to the heart of the drama almost halfway through the movie. By then, however, the characters are so well established (especially in Wang and Ge’s wonderful cat-and-mouse double act) that the revenge plot, spread across 15 years, unfolds at an almost relaxed pace, with the viewer inveigled into sympathising not only with Wang’s ruthless general but also with Ge’s wily but tantrum-prone physician. Unfortunately, the final confrontation between the three main characters doesn’t quite have the dramatic clout needed to climax such a long-arced story, though individually the performances can’t be faulted.

Among the supporting roles, Fan isn’t much more than decorous as the princess; much better is Hai Qing 海清 as the physician’s wife, in the film’s only other female role. Chen has always been a better director of men than women, and the film has plenty of strong male supports, from the general’s vengeful, onetime supporter played by Huang Xiaoming 黄晓明, through the Zhao minister of Bao Guoan 鲍国安, to an extended cameo by Zhang Fengyi 张丰毅 (the general Cao Cao in Red Cliff 赤壁, 2008) as a loyal family friend.

Design for this early era in Chinese history – just before the chaotic Warring States period and the eventual unification of country – is ochry and suitably uncolorful, with a dusty realism. The score by Ma Shangyou 马上又 could have been more atmospheric, to match the complex emotions being played out on screen.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Film Group Shanghai Film Studio (CN), TIK Films (CN), Stellar Megamedia (CN), Beijing 21st Century Shengkai Film (CN). Produced by Beijing 21st Century Shengkai Film (CN).

Script: Chen Kaige. Script development: Gao Xuan, Ren Baoru, Zhao Ningyu. Play: Ji Junxiang. Photography: Yang Shu. Editing: Xu Hongyu [Derek Hui]. Music: Ma Shangyou. Song: Ma Shangyou. Production design: Liu Qing. Art direction: Tian Xiaoxi. Costume design: Chen Tongxun. Make-up: Liu Qing, Wang Wei, Liu Ye. Sound: Qi Siming, Wang Danrong. Action: Gu Xuanzhao. Visual effects: Christopher Bremble, Li Jinhui (Base FX). Executive director: Du Jun.

Cast: Ge You (Cheng Ying), Wang Xueqi (Tu’an Gu, general), Huang Xiaoming (Han Jue), Fan Bingbing (Zhuang, princess), Hai Qing (Cheng Ying’s wife), Zhang Fengyi (Gong Sun Chujiu), Zhao Wenzhuo (Zhao Shuo, general), Bao Guoan (Zhao Dun, minister), Wang Han (boy Zhao orphan), Zhao Wenhao (teenage Zhao orphan), Peng Bo (Ling, monarch of Jin state), Wang Jinsong (counsellor), Chen Feiyu (new monarch), Dong Wenjun (Ling Zhe), Li Dongxue (Ti Miming, Zhao Dun’s bodyguard), Li Geng (man eating noodles), Liu Yajin (sick man), Zhao Shili (messenger).

Release: China, 4 Dec 2010.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 23 Dec 2010.)