Archive for October, 2005
The Mermaid
When Shaw started producing haungmei operas, their films were only the latest step in China’s millennia long cultural evolution. What began as spoken tales transformed into poems, poems into operas and operas into other operatic styles.
In the early 1900s, operas jumped onto film — much like US films, the first Chinese movies were of famous stage scenes. As films got longer, it was only natural that the Chinese would adapt their operas again, this time for the screen.
Shaw’s 1965 version of The Mermaid is just the latest mutation of a story that is least as old as the Ming dynasty (14th to 17th century), when it was collected into a book of tales about Judge Bao, himself a mix of legend and reality from the 11th century.
Even after 10 centuries tales like The Mermaid retain a surprising vitality. While Shaw’s production never abandons the traditions of opera, it’s not afraid to take advantage of the possibilities provided by film — special effects, split screen and other tricks impossible on the stage.
The film also cemented a new tradition, the pairing of Ivy Ling Bo and Li Ching, who would take the lead roles in most of Shaw’s remaining haungmei films. Bo, of course, was already a star. Since 1963’s The Love Eterne, she’d starred in a number of Shaw’s haungmei operas. Li Ching was a new actress, only 17 when The Mermaid was released; but she was a quickly rising star. Her performance won a Best Actress award and made her a leading lady well into the 70s.
In The Mermaid the actresses take their traditional roles — Ivy Ling Bo as the poor scholar Zhang Zhen and Li Ching as the beauties Peony and the Carp Spirit, an immortal who falls for the mortal Zhang Zhen and, impersonating the spoiled Peony, marries him.
Once the Carp Spirit’s deception is discovered, the film excels, taking full advantage of split screens and other effects to have the real Peony and the carp Peony on screen. Yeah, yeah, split screen is not a fancy high-tech trick, but the film has a lot of fun with the idea of duplication, making its second half a lot more fun than its less jovial beginning.
The Mermaid
Dir: Kao Li
Released: January 29, 1965