Reviving real events of Chinese history, the film The Taking of Tiger Mountain directed by Tsui Hark depicts the incident during the Chinese Civil War. State-of-the-art special effects and historical truth have converged in the film, touching viewers’ feelings and attracting the vast audience. This paper will discuss The Taking of Tiger Mountain by referring to the film’s predecessors and analyzing the novel techniques of its direction and cinematography.
The plot of The Taking of Tiger Mountain and its predecessors is based on authentic historical circumstances; specifically, the story is set in the late1940s. The eight-year war against the Japanese is over but counter-revolutionary gangs begin to rage in the northeastern regions of China. The squad of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is sent to fight guerillas (Hark). The PLA fighters “are flawlessly portrayed as noble, heroic, and brave” (To 8). However, they are involved in an unequal battle because the bandits exceed them in weaponry and number. Planting a mole in the gang seems to be the sole opportunity to fulfill the PLA’s mission. Yang Zirong, the main heroic protagonist of the film, was also a real-life character (To 6). He infiltrates the gang under the guise of a parliamentarian from another gang and ensures the PLA’s advantage in the struggle against the enemies. The combined forces of the PLA and mobilized villagers eradicate the gang (Hark).
These historical events and heroic deeds of Chinese patriots served as an inspirational source for different Chinese art forms, including a literary work, the Peking revolutionary opera, a television play, a stage play, an animated film, and movies (Chen 83). All of these pieces of art can be identified as predecessors of The Taking of Tiger Mountain. Initially, these historical circumstances were depicted by Qu Bo in his novel Tracks in the Snowy Forest in 1957. The success of the novel contributed to its adaptation to other art genres. A year later, in 1958, the Troupe of the Shanghai Academy of the Peking Opera performed Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, identifying it as a modern revolutionary Peking opera (Peking Opera Troupe i). Later on, in 1971, the Group of the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe published the booklet containing a list of performers, photo reproductions, scripts of scenes, descriptions of musical instruments, and texts of songs in both Chinese and English.
Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (1971), a so-called model opera film was also one of the predecessors of The Taking of Tiger Mountain. The depiction of heroic battles, images of Chinese patriots, national symbols, and the triumph of communist ideas were the most important semantic and emotional dominants during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) (Spence and Chin 28). Mao Zedong believed that art had to promote proletarian ideology. Moreover, the entertainment character of works was not welcomed in the Maoist era. Model revolutionary operas were used by Chinese authorities as a powerful political movement for new proletarian literature and art, as well as a means of strengthening the new ideology. Therefore, revolutionary opera was a solely sanctioned opera genre in China at that time (Peking Opera Troupe 15). Grounding on the Beijing Opera techniques, Mao-era model operas had to be flawless in terms of the communist ideology, glorify the revolutionary struggle, and demonstrate the synthesis of traditional Chinese art and Western culture through the prism of socialist realism. Even though politicized messages were apparent in the plot and text of the libretto, the talent and professionalism of everyone involved in the production of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy made it a real masterpiece.
Preceding The Taking of Tiger Mountain, the animated film Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy was released in 2011. Examining viewers’ online testimonials, Chen states that the perception of the animated predecessor of The Taking of Tiger Mountain was mainly negative because this artistic creation is overloaded with historical and political components (88). The audience perceived the animated film “as a propaganda tool served for the political purpose” (Chen 86). Nevertheless, Chen admits that viewers’ negative attitudes towards an artistic quality of the animated version can be defined as warped judgments (86). Obviously, in The Taking of Tiger Mountain, as well as in its predecessors, hyperboles and exaggeration are widely used in order to create vivid and convincing heroic-patriotic images. In this case, the collective image of people performing feats acquires special significance. It is emphasized that people are the main contributors to societal transformations. The film characters personify the entire strength of the nation. Being an important philosophical and ideological constant for Chinese people, this idea constitutes part of their national consciousness and collective memory.
Tsui Hark’s approaches to direction and filming are in line with the promotion of the proletarian ideology in the film’s predecessors. In Hark’s creation, “the camera angles, poses, and gestures of the PLA protagonist Yang Zirong, in particular, enhance the ideological presentation of the film” (To 8). On the contrary, the grotesque representation is apparent in the scenes with the bandits. However, despite similarities between The Taking of Tiger Mountain and its previous versions related to the plot and patriotism-grounded context, the film involves some distinctions regarding its direction and cinematography. The utilization of computer-generated imagery and 3D technology has allowed creating a completely new look at past events.
In addition, as distinct from its previous versions, Tsui Hark’s film introduces a contemporary character named Jimmy, a young ethnic Chinese from New York. The past events reproduced in the Peking model opera Kill the Tiger in the Mountain, an old film, are interpreted through Jimmy’s perception by using the flashback technique. The boy watches the film on his smartphone at any opportunity. The scenes with Jimmy intersperse with the depiction of events in the past. Jimmy’s absorption with the film articulates the significance of the events portrayed. He recalls his grandfather’s story and realizes that his family member is one of the film characters, specifically, a child saved by the PLA soldiers. Returning to his grandmother’s home, during Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner, Jimmy fantasizes that the ghosts of the PLA platoon join him at the festive dinner (Hark). This approach accentuates interconnections that can exist between the Chinese government and members of ethnic Chinese Diasporas.
Another technique applied in The Taking of Tiger Mountain is the frequent visualization of ideology-oriented posters from the era of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The posters convey strong patriotism, loyalty, and involvement (To 12). The depiction of the noble and courageous PLA soldiers and villagers’ trust in them involuntarily evokes allegiance.
Summing up, magnificent heroic and patriotic images embodied in works of art have not only cognitive importance, but also play an effective role in shaping the consciousness of spectators, their aesthetic views, and patriotism-related ideals. These trends are specific to The Taking of Tiger Mountain. Although the film involves the application of some novel direction and cinematography methods, it serves the same ideological purposes as its predecessors.
Works Cited
Chen, Shaopeng. “Chinese Netizens’ Reactions to Red Classics Cinema Animation: A Case Study of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (2011).” Asian Culture and History, vol. 8, no. 2, 2016, pp. 83-90.
Hark, Tsui, director. The Taking of Tiger Mountain. Bona Film Group, 2014.
Peking Opera Troupe. Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy: A Modern Revolutionary Peking Opera. Foreign Languages Press, 1971.
Spence, Jonathan, and Ann-ping Chin. The Chinese Century: A Photographic History of the Last Hundred Years. Random House, 1996.
To, Nathan. “A Revolution for Memory: Reproductions of a Communist Utopia Through Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain and Posters from the Cultural Revolution.”Frames Cinema Journal, vol. 5, pp. 1-29, 2015. Web.