Forever Enthralled
Chen Kaige

The story: Beijing opera singer Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) was one of the biggest stars of his time. This biopic covers several key periods in the female impersonator’s life, including his rise to prominence, his successful American tour and his refusal to perform in Japanese-occupied China.

Mention Chen Kaige and opera, and the first thing that comes to mind is the China film-maker’s Farewell My Concubine, winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1993.
There are some surface similarities between the two films – the epic sweep, the elegant art direction – but unlike Farewell, Forever Enthralled is more concerned with events than characters.
In this sense, it would be more apt to compare it with martial arts biopic Ip Man (2008). Both story arcs are similar, portraying the protagonist at his peak, how he deals with challenges and finally his heroic defiance of the Japanese.
But Mei is less of a paper cut-out than Ip Man, even though it is hard to reconcile the spirited younger Mei played by real-life opera singer Yu Shaoqun with the older version, whom Cantopop Heavenly King Leon Lai portrays as languid and rather one-note.
At the beginning of his career, Mei challenges the strict rules of Beijing opera in order to inject a greater dose of reality into the art, going so far as to clash head-on with veteran actor Shisan Yan (Wang Xueqi in a poignant performance).
You get a sense of the artist as an iconoclast, and Yu does a marvellous job of conveying the steely reserve beneath the gentle exterior. There is then an odd disconnect when Lai takes over as Mei.
Making up for Lai’s underwhelming performance, the strong supporting cast steal the limelight in a number of key roles. Sun Honglei is impassioned and ultimately tragically sympathetic as Mei’s lifelong supporter Qiu Rubai, and Chen Hong, Chen Kaige’s wife, prevents Mei’s shrewd and protective wife from becoming a caricature.
However, the romance between Mei and male impersonator Meng Xiaodong (Zhang Ziyi, who can play sassy in her sleep) is less than convincing.
The relationship between a female impersonator and a male impersonator is tailor-made for an exploration of gender roles but Chen Kaige barely ventures there. This is a glaring omission since it is said of Mei that the peak of his artistry was that he was “more like a woman than the real thing”.
Forever Enthralled does not live up to its overwrought English title. Instead, it is a technically competent if emotionally distant by-the-numbers biopic whose stately pace starts to wear thin in the final act set during the Japanese Occupation.
Chen Kaige and opera still add up to Farewell My Concubine.
(ST)