Aventurina King

Coming from To Live, Gong Li’s impersonation in the shanghai triad seems ill-suited and unbelievable.  In To Live, she was matronly, her soft features plesantly molded as she acquired maturity.  In Shanghai Triad, she goes by the name of Bijou.  An onstage phenomenon comparable to the Moulin Rouge’s Satin, but a deal more mediocre as she oodles through her numbers, arms flapping and fake smiles.  To Live’s matron has disappeared, at least it was Zhang Yimou’s intention to do so, but Gong Li just isn’t the mean type.  I can’t believe that moon of a face or those plump lips would ever float above a pretentious gate, red finger-nailed hands that slap or would emit a ring of swear words and pettty vengeful phrases.
Of course, she does this because her character can afford to, married to the most powerful man of Westernized shanghai and served by the 14 year old “country bumpkin” Shuisheng whose vision narrates the Shanghai Triad.  She does eventually open up, her scornful defensive appearance is but an original way to preserve her flower of a heart.  She shows compassion for a family living on the island her husband must take refuge in after he is attacked by a competing gang.  She even laughs with Shuisheng and herself discovers her “country bumpkin” nature as she roams through the island’s glistening reeds, stripped of her ostentatious silk and attired in rough printed cotton (she keeps the high heeled shoes on though).  We realize she is but a victim of shanghai’s gang era and the end of the movie confirms this (an upside down shot of Bijou-less boat from the suspended Shuisheng).

Zhang Yimou is clearly obsessed with Gong Li.  In To Live, the lens’ focus is on her husband’s experience of the 30 years of chinese modern history–the camera tracks him as he bets and loses all his families possessions up to his grand stone mansion; then through his puppet shows during the revolution and his quizzical faces at the cultural revolution.  But Gong Li’s character is more compelling, her soft features are the marble slate whose frowns and tears best engulf and reflect the deaths, sufferings and births woven around the couple.
To Live is a heavyweight masterpiece, it is long, most of the time mulling through the couple’s tears with brief moments of sunshine and comedy.  The flood of colors which dazzled in red sorghum, Judou and raise the red lantern has dried up.  Darker tones of gey and blue of  communist dress amid ancient stone walls are pierced through once in a while by bright propagandistic flyers and red marriage dresses.  The incessant surprises and suspense makes the three hours pass through in a quasi flash.