film review, Judou ( 1990)

After the catastrophic Cultural Revolution the film industry in China encountered the fresh air of the “new wave”. The 5^th generation directors include Yimou Zhang, Kaige Chen, Zhuangzhuang Tian brought masterpieces like “Judou”, “Red sorghum” and “farewell my concubine” on the screen. Due to reason that they was born in a special period of time in China, the so called socialist cinema had sunk into their nature, the focus remained on the peasants, works and solders. But what made the difference was without the government control and restriction; they owned much more freedom to create their own scripts and characters. ( In the time of socialist cinema, directors had to make their characters “rule models” for the audiences in order to show their absolute loyalty to the communist party and chairman Zedong Mao, the “wrong” instruction were never allowed to appear on the screen to the public.) Rather than extolling the great sacrifice female characters make for the country and party, 90s’ films emphasized women as “human” and their emotional desire and the right to pursue the life they dreamed of. “ Judou” as a classic of the time, designate the women who has exhausted her whole life against the patriarchy and the feudal ethic codes.  

Judou is forced to marry a old rich man who owns a dye house. After the first night of her marriage she finds out herself is not only the birth-giving machine but a object of his sexual abuse. Due to the approval of patriarchy system in her own subconsciousness, she suffers the pain day by day and doesn’t even have the courage to make a change. Aside the “husband” in this film, another male figure is the “nephew” of her husband who almost falls in love with his “aunt-in law” the first time they meet. He is another victim of the patriarchy, the only thing he dares to do is lurking around the peephole when Judou is in shower. This scene, meets the theory of Laura Harvey about “male gaze” in her book “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”; that is to say, “in a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy on to the female figures which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibition role woman are simultaneously looked at and displayed.” [1] This bold, unique design in films at that time, obviously suit the taste of the international market and committees as it won the awards from Cannes Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival in 1990.

In the Chinese conventions man is always the central of a family. If husband dies the elder son will take over the responsibility to “manage” the whole family, include his own mother. In this film, after Judou’s son ( whose father is the nephew of her husband) accidently pushes his nominal dad into the pool, he became the real owner of the family. He hates his genetic father for ruining the reputation of his mother and the gossip around—although he is just a 13 years old teenage boy, he shows his dark and despicable side to the audiences. He, at some points, is another “ husband” for Judou. After he kills his own father, Judou finally realized what makes this all happened is her recreance.