| Two Stage Sisters | |||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 舞臺姐妹 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 舞台姐妹 | ||||||
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| Directed by | Xie Jin | ||||||
| Written by | Lin Gu Xu Jin Xie Jin | ||||||
| Produced by | Ding Li | ||||||
| Starring | Xie Fang Cao Yindi Shangguan Yunzhu | ||||||
| Cinematography | Zhou Daming Chen Zhenxiang | ||||||
| Edited by | Zhang Liqun | ||||||
| Music by | Huang Zhun | ||||||
Release date |
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Running time | 114 minutes | ||||||
| Country | China | ||||||
| Languages | Mandarin Wu Chinese | ||||||
Two Stage Sisters[1] is a 1964 Chinese drama film produced byShanghai Tianma Film Studio and directed byXie Jin, starringXie Fang andCao Yindi. Made just before theCultural Revolution, it tells the story of two femaleYue opera practitioners from the same troupe who end up taking very different paths in their lives: "one succumbs to bourgeois affluence and privilege, while the other finds inspiration and fulfilment in the social commitment associated with theMay Fourth movement and the thought ofLu Xun.”[2] The film documents their journey through abusive feudal conditions in the countryside before achieving success and prestige on the stage, meanwhile historically followingShanghai's experience under Japanese and KMT rule. This original screenplay depicts the socio-political changes encompassing China from 1935 to 1950 (just after the founding ofNew China) through the theatrical world ofShaoxing, and accordingly mixes both a Chinese aesthetic with Hollywood and socialist realist forms.[3] The main protagonist (Zhu Chunhua) is said to be based on the life of Xie Jin's friend and opera-veteranYuan Xuefen.[4]
In 1935 a runawaytongyangxi, Zhu Chunhua, takes refuge at an itinerant Yue Opera troupe (Yangchun Theatre Troupe) performing at aShaoxing village. The head of the troupe, A’Xin, intends to send the girl away, but Yue Opera teacher Xing, seeing her potential, takes Chunhua in as a disciple and trains her. Chunhua signs a deal with the troupe and becomes the performing partner (in adan role) to the teacher’s daughter Yuehong, the latter performing as axiaosheng.
A rich provincial landlord Ni invites Chunhua and Yuehong to sing at his house privately after the troupe reaches his province. He takes an interest in Yuehong; however, Yuehong and her father spurn his interest and as a result,Kuomintang cops forcibly seize Yuehong one day during a performance. Chunhua is also arrested and tied to a pillar for days as “public humiliation”. The two are released after Xing and A’Xin send bribes to theKMT cops.
During theSecond Sino-Japanese War, Yuehong, Chunhua and the troupe go through hard times. In 1941, Teacher Xing dies of an illness, and troupe master A’Xin sells his two best performers to Tang, aShanghai opera theater manager, on a three-year contract. Yuehong and Chunhua, nowsworn sisters, rapidly become Tang’s biggest stars, causing Tang to forsake his aging star and former lover, Shang Shuihua.
Three years elapse. Yuehong and Chunhua are renowned in the city. Chunhua remains down-to-earth but Yuehong grows steadily more materialistic. Sick of having to sing opera for life, Yuehong rashly agrees to Tang's proposal, but Chunhua distrusts Tang and refuses to support Yuehong’s marriage plans. Unbeknownst to Yuehong, Tang already has a wife, and is keeping her as a mistress.
One day faded ex-star Shang commits suicide by hanging herself. Chunhua is incensed that Tang, her former lover, attempts to shirk his responsibilities by claiming he has nothing to do with her death. Through this episode, Chunhua gets to know a "radical" lady journalist Jiang Bo (a female communist reporter investigating the death),[5] who advises her to become "progressive" to teach other Chinese to distinguish between truth and falsehood. She starts performing “progressive” operas like an adaptation ofLu Xun’s ‘’The New Year's Sacrifice’’ in an attempt to politicize the work of the troupe, whose production consequently gets banned.[5]
Chunhua’s works alert the KMT regime who gives Tang the task to ruin Chunhua's reputation. They get A’Xin to file a lawsuit against Chunhua and Manager Tang coerces Yuehong to testify against Chunhua, but at the crucial moment in the courtroom, Yuehong faints.
The film ends in 1950, one year after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Chunhua prepares to performThe White-Haired Girl for country folks atZhejiang. Tang has run off toTaiwan with the KMT cohort and Yuehong is quietly abandoned at Shaoxing province. Although Yuehong witnesses Chunhua’s drama, she is too ashamed to face her sworn sister again. Near a quay later the day, however, the sisters manage a tearful reunion. On the boat the following day, Yuehong vows to learn her lesson and walk the "correct" path while Chunhua dedicates her entire life to performing revolutionary operas.
Xia Yan, Vice Minister of Culture when the film was made, had made script corrections and encouraged Xie Jin to shoot the film.Xia Yan was particularly disliked byMao's wife,Jiang Qing, and thusTwo Stage Sisters is argued to have stood out for censure due to its association withYan.[3]
By the second part of the film, Xie is referring to when the protagonists encounter communist ideals, which of course reflected to the audience the communist regime at hand. In Xie's depiction, the communist state becomes the inheritor of the leftist realist tradition, but Xie Jin knew the reality was otherwise.[6] In other words, "drama and film could no longer remain truly realist under the communist regime."[7] Accordingly, instead of having the two stage sisters reunite in the "new society" which would allow them to perform Opera with full devotion and creative freedom as Xie Jin wanted, he was forced to work within the restraints of the censorships of the time and instead have Chunhua encourage Yuehong to become a revolutionary and to perform revolutionary-focused plays.[8]
Two Stage Sisters demonstrates director Xie’s keen interest in traditionalChinese opera art, which he had studied during theJapanese Occupation at theJiangen Drama Academy. He had then worked with well-known opera practitioners such asHuang Zuoling andZhang Junxiang.
Regarding the stage sisters themselves, some forms ofChinese opera troupes during this time were made up of artists mostly in one gender only. This was due to the strictfengjian taboo which forbade men and women to appear together on stage as romantic leads. This norm is still the case in more traditional Chinese opera troupes performing inmainland China,Taiwan orHong Kong. This phenomenon also explains why mosthuangmeidiao movies feature women in male roles (e.g.Ivy Ling Po).
AfterWorld War II, Shanghai once again fell under the control of theKuomintang. The turmoil within the theatrical world symbolizes the bitter political struggles between the Communists and the Nationalists. Some of the changes in the theatrical world reflect the momentous changes that were transforming China at this time.
James Wicks stated that "The film's use of setting is similar topre-1949 Shanghai films: spatial geography becomes a powerful force in the construction of class identity, and the division between the rural and the urban takes on moral connotations."[7] Shanghai was often seen during the early days of the PRC as a symbol of the bourgeois decadence and as such, is seen as the ideal venue to depict the stage sisters’ struggles later in life.
Yuan Xuefen, a friend of directorXie Jin, and one of the world's most notorious Shaoxing Opera experts is argued to be the "real life prototype" of Zhu Chunhua's character in the film.[9] She was notably also a consultant on the film.[8] After the film was banned, Yuan simultaneously received immense scrutiny and was targeted during theCultural Revolution for her participation in the film's production. This was likely because "some of her undertakings inadvertently coincided with the interests of the left, such as her staging ofSister Xianglin and her refusal to be involved with the Yue Opera Workers’ Union, which was sanctioned by the Nationalist Social Affairs Bureau.”[10] However, she claims she did not act out of political motivation until after liberation.
The film's other two characters Xing Yuehong and Shang Shuihua are also said to be loosely based on Ma Zhanghua (Yuan's real life stage sister) and Xiao Dangui ("Queen of Yueju"), who in reality suffered at the hands of their theatre bosses.[10] "All these actresses, including Yuan’s famous “ten sisters” ofyueju in 1940s Shanghai alluded to in the film, were Shengxian orphans, child brides, or poverty-stricken country urchins sold to country troupes to seek a living in the theater."
This backstage melodrama is about aShaoxing opera rising from an itinerant small-town theater to Shanghai celebrity, a metaphor for the changes sweeping across China in the decades before the founding of People’s Republic of China.[2] By creating a duality between the aesthetic of the film and that of the fictional theatre world, Xie Jin structuredTwo Stage Sisters to mimic a Chinese opera performance; "Its episodic narrative structure, for example, relies on often disjointed, autonomous sequences to give it a sweeping scope and an ability to deal with all aspects of society."[3] The different historical, political, and social events depicted onstage in the theatre thus are intended to act as a microcosm for Chinese society as itself. The depiction of an "actress [bearing] hardship and [resisting] the corruption of a rotten society, [and] coming to understand that her performance on the small stage is related to changing the bigger stage, that of society itself," is deployed to convey national sentiments of the time of political consciousness.[3]
Xie Jin uses Chunhua's suffering to represent his own opinions about the KMT's political reign at this time. Another example of using Chunhua to convey political commentary is at the end of the film when Chunhua's state drama troupe revisits the same town that used to be corrupt and a site where she was punished.[7] The film is filled with commentary on the change from the old to the new society through the personal dramas of the stage sisters which parallel the theatrical plays they act in order to represent the political changes occurring in China at this time.
The opera starShangguan Yunzhu excellently plays the character of Shang Shuihua who commits suicide in the film. Four years after the film's production, due to the obscure circumstances stemming from the Cultural Revolution, actressShangguan Yunzhu tragically died by suicide as well. This incident inadvertently ties Xie Jin's film deeper into exposing the hardships of the Cultural Revolution, as Shangguan's death was caused largely by the harsh persecution she faced for being deemed acounter-revolutionary.
Two Stage Sisters was well received domestically when it was first screened, but the film was heavily attacked during theCultural Revolution for portraying and condoning “bourgeois” values. Since the late 1970s however, both the director and the film have been rehabilitated and the movie has made its round internationally.Two Stage Sisters won theSutherland Trophy ofBritish Film Institute Awards in the 24th (1980)London Film Festival, amongst other international prizes.
Today,Two Stage Sisters is considered by some to be Xie Jin’s masterpiece.[11][12] Many critics find aHollywood melodrama flavor to the movie,[13] whileGina Marchetti notes an indebtedness to Sovietsocial realism.[14] Summing up the film, Marchetti concludes:
Marchetti also assertsXie Jin's emphasis on rooting this film in a historical period:
Gilbert Adair gave the film a glowing review onTime Out magazine:
Mike Hale, writing on theNew York Times, was receptive and applauds Xie Jin for his resourcefulness:
J. Hoberman ofThe Village Voice said that "as one sister moves left and the other right, the parallels withChen Kaige’s 1992Farewell My Concubine are obvious."[16]
Steve Jenkins on behalf ofMonthly Film Bulletin commendsXie Jin's genre-defying work:
"Stage Sisters remains a remarkable historical document to this day because it encapsulates a compelling effort to satisfy the contradictory requirements of state propaganda, classical Hollywood narrative continuity, and Soviet socialist realism."[7]
He also voices public opinion over the film's controversial portrayal of historic events:
In 2014, the film underwent a six-month4K restoration at L'Immagine Ritrovata Film Restoration Laboratory inBologna,Italy. The restored film opened the 2014Shanghai International Film Festival at the city'sDaguangming Grand Theatre, with the lead actresses in attendance.[17]
