Pearl
Buck, America’s most famous missionary, lived in China from
her childhood to the age of 32. During the next fifty years
of her life, she wrote more than eighty-five books, receiving
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, though her books were
banned in China until 1994 because she once criticized the
acting ability of Madame Mao. Buck’s continuing aim in writing
was to show the folly of race prejudice. Among the novels
that carried out her purpose was Pavilion of Women
(1946), which director Ho Yim has now brought to the screen.
Set in Giansu province, the film begins in 1938, when Madame
Wu (played by Yan Luo) has decided at the age of 40 that she
is tired of serving her autocratic rich husband (played by
Shek Sau). Among the duties that she most eschews after twenty-six
years are the nightly massage and blowjob. Accordingly, she
arranges for her husband to take on a second wife, a concubine,
though first wives generally do not want to be eclipsed, and
concubinage is illegal. In the background of the film, thus,
is the fact that the Nationalist Chinese government exercises
little authority; indeed, the Japanese seizure of Manchuria
in 1931 has already indicated to men in the film that the
rest of China is vulnerable to conquest. A matchmaker appears
at her request, and an orphan from the country (played by
Yi Ding), is selected and named Chiu Ming. Meanwhile, Wu wants
his oldest son, Feng Mo (played by John Cho), to receive a
foreign education before his inevitable arranged marriage,
so Madame Wu summons Father André (played by Willem Dafoe),
an American missionary with medical training who runs a nearby
orphanage; Father André earlier saved the life of Madame Wu’s
best friend (played by Amy Hill). Although Madame Wu offers
to pay Father André to be a tutor, he declines; if there is
to be compensation, he prefers food and clothing for the orphans.
Thereafter, several love relationships emerge to complicate
life for the Wu family. Madame Wu falls for Father André,
Feng Mo has designs on Chiu Ming, and Wu is so displeased
with the service provided by Chiu Ming that he visits the
local brothel, that is, the pavilion of women. As a foreigner,
Father André brings many strange attitudes and customs to
bear in his interactions with the family, especially when
he gains two new pupils—Madame Wu and Chiu Ming. Accordingly,
Pavilion of Women reveals how Chinese culture
places much value on face and family, with men dominant over
women except for Wu’s matriarchal mother (played by Anita
Loo). At the same time, most Chinese in the film seek liberation
from certain customs that have guided the world’s oldest civilization.
Madame Wu wants to be liberated from being her husband’s sex
slave. The young concubine seeks liberation from poverty but
resists becoming Wu’s new sex slave. Wu, in taking on a concubine,
defies Chinese law. Feng Mo, to avoid an arranged marriage,
joins the Communist army. And all China wants liberation from
the Japanese. Nevertheless, the Japanese in due course arrive
to occupy the town, whereupon Wu takes his servants upcountry.
But his two wives prefer to remain under Japanese occupation,
and Father André is shot trying to defend them. At the end
of the film, three years later, Feng Mo returns in a Red Army
uniform as a part of the force liberating Madame Wu, Chiu
Ming, and the rest of the townspeople. Filmed in China, where
imperial flags of Japan were evidently unavailable, Pavilion
of Women has only been released to art theaters in
the United States, doubtless because of the slow pace and
silly propaganda spliced onto the end of a much better book.
Clearly, the intention of the joint Universal Focus-Beijing
Film Studios production is to be a commercial success among
more than a billion potential patrons in China. MH
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