Wu Yen (2001)

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By sharonapple (Kiasukid) on Sunday, May 06, 2001 - 08:28 am: Edit


Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai's "Wu Yen"

- Wu Yen
"Wu Yen" is a film I dare say we'll probably never see made in the West. It's also a film that reaffirms Milkyway Image's commitment to making films that are daring, stylistically interesting and well scripted.

The three leads in "Wu Yen" are women (Anita Mui, Cecilia Cheung, Sammi Cheng) but that's not what makes this film interesting. What makes the film interesting is the merging of lines between the genders.

Anita Mui plays the king and plays the king's ancestor. Both are male roles played by a woman and Anita Mui never becomes a woman in the film except when in disguise.

Cecilia Cheung plays the fox spirit (Xia Ying-chun) who can change genders at will. The fox spirit is in love with Sammi Cheng's Zhong Wu Yen but becomes a woman so that he can come between the king and Wu Yen.

Sammi Cheng's Wu Yen is a very capable woman who has a birthmark on her face so although the king has promised to marry her, he doesn't want to cuz she's "ugly." Wu Yen is mostly female except at one point she does take on a few male characteristics thanks to the king's ancestor's inexperience in magic. Wu Yen is also an extremely capable warrior and takes the role of general several times in the film.
And thrown into this whole mix, is Lam Shuet's effiminate official and a bunch of ineffectual male officials and you've got a wacky comedy with all kinds of gender-bendering going on. 

The sets are minimal and rather stage like moving away from the generally opulent sets of period films. Instead of showing large hordes of armies at battle, the filmmakers use shadow puppetry accompanied by singing to tell about Wu Yen's deeds in the battle field.

Wu Yen's story isn't unfamiliar with Chinese audiences. The phrase "you shi zhong wu yen, wu shi xia ying chun" (badly trans. when you have a problem you look for Zhong Wu-yen, when you don't have a problem you look for Xia Ying Chun) comes from this story. It's actually a satire on the courts and the many incompetent kings in Chinese history.

The story of Wu Yen can be told in a few sentences. Wu Yen saves the kingdom again and again but the king refuses to marry her because she is ugly. He's also constantly distracted by the beautiful Xia Ying-chun and all his advisors are all talk but not very effective.

What makes this film good is the good performance from the entire cast (and I say that even though I don't particularly like Cecilia Cheung,) good "moleitau" (sp?) type humour a la Stephen Chow, good satire and the shadow puppets with music.

It's really a difficult movie to recommend to a non-Chinese audience because I really don't know if the humour is easily understood by people that aren't used to HK comedy. Also, the entire majong scene which I loved will probably be difficult to understand unless you play or understand something about majong.
 
For those who read Chinese, here is the link to Wu Yen's official website. It's rather nice.

http://www.chinastar.com./microsite/wu-yen/p2/news/news_non.htm

Here is another link, to Chinastar's main website where you can find links to "The Fighter's Blues" and "Master Q 2001."

http://www.chinastar.com/main.html

CONTed later... Herman Yau's "Master Q 2001"