This article covers a couple movies I’ve been watching lately and whether they provide value for learning Chinese. The movies themselves are all pre-90s. I found myself going down the rabbit hole for these movies looking for something completely different to shake things up with. I’m going to try and avoid too many spoilers (unless they are painfully obvious).
马兰花 – 1960
This movie may be one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in years. This movie is effectively China’s answer to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (which may or may not be written by Queen Victoria). I found this movie purely by chance stumbling around on the internet as I had never even heard it referenced in China.
The film is black and white, produced in 1960 by Haiyan Pictures from Shanghai (see this Baidu Baike article for more). The movie production is very low budget compared to newer films and most productions of the time, but the special effects are all practical so they hold up (well enough). This film is targeted more at children, but I found it held up as something which can be enjoyed in a family setting even for the parents.
The story follows a family of four who lives down below Malan Mountain (马兰山). The family is comprised of Father Wang (王爹), Mother Wang (王妈妈), and their twin daughters Dalan (大兰) and Xiaolan (小兰) (who are played by the same actress too, adding to the surrealism and unintentional humor). Dalan (大兰) is a bit of a pun for 大懒 because the older sister is exceptionally lazy, while Xiaolan (小兰) is hard working and filial. Father Wang loves his daughters and wants to go up to Malan Mountain to collect medicinal plants and at the same time get a beautiful Malan flower (马兰花) from the mountain for his younger daughter.
Father Wang (王爹) heads up the mountain and we are introduced to the spirit (or demigod) who lives up on the mountain, Malang (马郎), and all of his animal (and plant) helpers as well as our main antagonist the Black Hearted Wolf (黑心狼). Father Wang (王爹) is gifted the Malan flower (马兰花) for reasons explained in the movie (I’m not going to spoil it for you) and he is told to protect it as it is magical. The rest of the movie is the unfolding of these events from this magic flower.
This movie is a surreal adventure which takes us on a journey of good versus evil as the vices play out between the sisters. The movie features various woodland creatures (or people in very primitive woodland creature outfits) which just add to the absurdity and appeal of this movie. This has become one of my new favorite movies simply by virtue of how surreal it is. The language is pretty simple as well, though do be sure to watch it with subtitles as the audio can be a bit lacking due to the technology of the time. The story ends with a pretty standard, kid friendly happy ending, and all wrongs are righted and the usual for a family movie. Watch it and you definitely won’t regret it.
画皮 – 1966
Painted Skin (画皮) is typically known for its newest incarnation, but it is based on a much older story (specifically one from 聊斋志异). The original movie this article is about was released in 1966 and is in color (see the article here for more from Baidu Baike about the film. The story is a (by today’s standards very tame) horror story about a monster or ghost thing which wears a (spoiler) “painted skin” to disguise itself and hide its horrid appearance.
This movie has a bit of filler at the beginning and the end featuring a grandfather, father, and son (or something like that, but it’s immaterial to the actual story) with the father and son wanting to hear one of the grandfather’s stories. The grandfather is talked into it over dinner and drinks and tells them a ghost story about a family where the elder son, Wang Chongwen (王崇文), is trying to pass the local exam to become an official. His wife, Chen Shi (陈氏) is extremely supportive and they live in a traditional Chinese style multi-generational family home. His younger brother, Wang Chongwu (王崇武) goes off to study martial arts early on.
One day while Wang Chongwu is gone, a young woman shows up after being scared off while claiming to be the daughter of the local exam official. She gives her name as Mei Niang (梅娘) and she says she can help Wang Chongwen (王崇文) with the exam. Obviously, as this is a horror story, things begin to get a bit weird. Wang Chongwen (王崇文) is enamored with his new guest and locks himself in the back area with her unbeknownst to the rest of the family with the excuse that he needs to study.
Weird happenings begin and the family gets a bit suspicious of what all is going on. Wang Chongwen (王崇文) goes a bit off his rocker, but luckily, Wang Chongwu (王崇武) comes back and helps get things under control. The movie ends with the family from the beginning finishing up the story and heading off for the night. I left a good bit out from my synopsis to keep from revealing the denouement in this version.
This story is pretty well known in China due to the 聊斋 being a classic, but I hadn’t really heard about this specific film adaptation before. The older movies are much better for language learning (minus the audio quality in some) due to the fact they used a bit simpler of language in period pieces (versus the modern trend of heavily literary Chinese in most period movies). The special effects are practical and a generation or so beyond Malanhua (马兰花) and the budget is obviously much, much higher in this work. I would rate it decently high as a solid 7 or 8 out of 10 (taking into account the time it was made), but I do feel it has a few abrupt transitions that leave a bit to be desired for certain parts of the story.
蟋蟀皇帝 – 1966
I have no idea how I stumbled on this movie, but I am glad I did. This is a comedy movie from 1966 titled The Cricket and the King (蟋蟀皇帝) which tells the story of a stupid emperor obsessed with cricket fighting and the hijinks which happen in the nearby town thanks to his quest for the perfect, winning cricket. The town is a little fishing village with a bevy of villagers who work together to fend off the absurdity of the emperor. See this article on Baidu Baike for more.
The two protagonists, Zhang Xiang (张祥) and Xiaofeng (小凤) have their marriage interrupted multiple times by the shenanigans of the emperor’s goons out to find him a winning cricket for his cricket fights. The emperor loses a cricket fight with one of his advisers and sends his other high level officials out to try and find him a winning cricket. They harass the townsfolk on their journey and the townsfolk respond in kind with their own revenge.
I would write more, but nothing does the movie justice like just watching the back and forth between the townsfolk and the imperial court. From a language learning standpoint, the movie does provide some decent dialogue and decent humor to go with it with a smattering of more literary language which isn’t always necessary to understand the flow of the plot. To say this movie is “campy” would be a bit of an understatement, so if you like cheese and want something just fun, then this is your movie.