Blog - nya Nemot

ON MAIDEN ROSE AND JASMINE WOMEN

I saw two very good China mainland movies.
Interestingly, the 2 are similarly titled and themed.
It may have something to do with Chinese culture in symbolizing women as flowers.
Those 2 movies tells about 3 women of different generations undergoing changes throughout the history of China.
They picture women’s position in Chinese cultural landscape.
How the former generation are trapped in the old tradition, the latest generation eagerly embraces the so-called modernity and how the generation between are stuck in the middle.
But for two words, the movies are about Girl Power .

The first Movie is Maiden Rose
Hoa Diao, is the daughter of a prominent rice-wine maker.
He sent his girl to a school, something unheard of in that 1920’s era.
Educated as she is, Hoa’s dream is of marrying a man of love.
Her father kept a special wine Niu Erl Hong in a secret place, to be presented as a wedding gift. Oblivious to her daughter’s affair with a helper Chen A Ou, the proud father accepted a proposal from a respectable family.
Hoa’s future husband is still a 12 year old spoiled brat!
Heart-stricken, Hoa’s silent rebellion resulted in unwanted pregnancy.
Her lover was sent away and set sailed to Taiwan.
China was a closed country then, and no one from Taiwan could come over to visit, or vice versa. Her father died soon after, leaving an undiscovered secret of the special Niu Erl Hong wine.

Years gone by and Hoa’s daughter grow to be a very smart woman.
Despite getting highest grade, she was denied the chance to go to university due to her fatherless status.
When she was forced to work as a pot washer in the rice-wine factory, she lost all hope and decided to marry an abominable man.
This man represents all the bad things of a Chinese man.
Ugly, inconsiderate, uneducated and consider a wife as a free slave and baby producing man hole.
This marriage is a rebellion to her mother Hoa Diao and ended up in divorce when she gave birth to Chen Fei.
Hoa's biggest dream now is to find Niu Erl Hong and give it as a wedding present for herdaughter.
This dream too, was deprived of her.
Meanwhile, she heard that Chen decided to settle for his own family in Taiwan.

Chen Fei, is a modern girl in modern China. She know what she wants, unafraid to say her opinion, pursues her dreams and sleeps with her boyfriend. With a little twist in the end, Hoa Diao finally realizes her dream of finding the secret Niu Erl Hong, and present it on her grand daughter wedding, while reuniting with her long lost love Chen A Ou.

Jasmine Women
Ziyi Zhang features three women of three generations.
The first woman is a beautiful budding star movie and singer.
Falling desperately for a fellow star, she surrender herself completely only to find that this man only wants to deflower her.
She keeps living in a dream throughout her life, wishing how she would be famous had she not got her daughter.
She keeps an old magazine picturing her glorious old days as a movie star, and calls every young man Gary, the man who left her.

Her daughter (also by Ziyi Zhang) is paranoid and slightly neurotic, and disappear when her husband died in a suicide.
Their adopted daughter, the third generation, is an educated woman.
She marries a college fellow in secret, leaving her grandmother feeling betrayed.
Her husband then left to Japan to get higher education, but came back later only to file a divorce.
The third Zhang destined to held her head up high.
She decides she can live her life alone.
The most touching moments is when she struggles to deliver her daughter in a pouring rain on the street-side. It was glorious.
She’s finally grown to embrace her past, present and future.
And to make peace with herself.

posted by Nemot @ 6:19 PM