Judou

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Judou
Original title Jú Dòu / 菊 豆
Country of production People's Republic of China
Japan
original language Mandarin
Publishing year 1990
length 95 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Zhang Yimou
script Lui Heng
Yang Feng-Liang
production Zhang Wen-Ze
Yasuyoshi Tokuma
Hu Jian
music Zhao Jiping
camera Gu Changwei
Yang Lun
cut You yuan
occupation

Judou ( Chinese  菊 豆 , Pinyin Jú Dòu ) is a Sino-Japanese drama film directed by Zhang Yimou from 1990.

action

A small Chinese town in the 1920s: Yang Jin-Shan, owner of a dye mill, has bought a new young woman named Judou. The impotent despot tortured his two former wives to death because the marriages remained childless. In addition to Jin-Shan, his son Yang Tian Quing also works in the dye mill. Tian Quing is not the real son of Jin-Shan, whom he calls "uncle", but was adopted by him. Now he witnesses how Jin-Shan also begins to torture his new wife. When he first sees Judou, he immediately falls in love with her. He begins to secretly watch her wash and speaks to her about her injuries. She replies that she fell. She later notices that he is watching her and tries to prevent him from doing so, but eventually deliberately exposes herself to him. She later begs him to leave her to her fate, knowing that Jin-Shan will soon kill her.

Jin-Shan is out one day when he has to see a doctor for an injured horse. Judou offers himself to Tian Quing, who does not respond. The next day she teases him with his fear and seduces him. Judou is soon pregnant and knows that Tian Quing is the father. However, Jin-Shan believes he is the child's father and is delighted when Judou gives birth to a son. The child is given the name Tian-Bai by the Yang family council.

Jin-Shan had an accident one day and was paralyzed from the waist down from then on. Tian Quing and Judou are now openly living out their relationship within the house. Judou also reveals to Jin-Shan that the child is Tian Quing. When Jin-Shan tries to strangle Tian-Bai, Judou orders Tian Quing to kill Jin-Shan. However, Jin-Shan only threatens him if he ever harms his child or his lover. After Jin-Shan tried in vain to set the dye mill on fire a little later, Tian Quing and Judou "kept" him hanging in the air in a roll box under unworthy conditions.

Over time, Judou becomes concerned that Tian-Bai does not speak. Tian Quing calms her down, but even as a toddler Tian-Bai doesn't say a word. One day, Jin-Shan is trying to push Tian-Bai into a dye pool and thus kill him when the boy calls him "Father". Jin-Shan embraces him crying. He teaches him that Judou is his mother and Tian Quing is his brother. Judou cannot now tell her son the truth as she originally planned. Also on Tian-Bai's third birthday, Jin-Shan enjoyed the humiliation of Tian Quing, who is said to pay homage to his “brother” Tian-Bai as the sole leader of the Yang lineage.

Judou and Tian Quing secretly continue their relationship, even though Judou is constantly afraid of a new pregnancy and of being discovered by the emotionless Tian-Bai. One day she confronts Tian Quing with the choice of killing Jin-Shan or herself because she can no longer endure her previous life. He rejects her request. Jin-Shan eventually dies when Tian-Bai accidentally pushes him into a dye basin with his wheelbarrow. At the sight of the drowning Jin-Shan, Tian-Bai laughs for the first time. Judou, in turn, is suspected by Tian Quing of killing Jin-Shan because he refused to commit the murder. According to tradition, the family council decides that Judou may not marry again. Tian Quing, on the other hand, has to leave the dye mill as a place to live in order not to get the widow Judou into talk.

A few years later, Tian-Bai has grown into a silent youth. Judou and Tian Quing meet secretly in the mill or outside. Tian-Bai never speaks to Tian Quing, but plans to kill a man in town who claims to have seen Judou having sex with a man. When Tian Quing meets again, Tian-Bai breaks his nose. Judou is horrified and reveals to her son that he has just hit his father. A little later, Judou and Tian Quing sleep together in a cave below the dyeing mill, but in which there is no external air supply. Tian-Bai finds both of them passed out, brings Judou to her room and pushes Tian Quing into a dyeing basin. When he wants to get out of the pool, Tian-Bai kills him, which Judou sees screaming from a distance. A little later, Judou stands alone in the dye mill that she has set on, and gazes emotionlessly at the flames, which are beating higher and higher.

production

Judou is loosely based on the novella Fuxi, Fuxi by Liu Heng from 1988, whereby in the original Jin-Shan and Tian Quing are actually father and son, the setting is not a dye factory and the plot spans several decades. Judou was created as a Chinese-Japanese co-production. Thanks to the financing of the Japanese production company Tokuma, Yimou now had better equipment for the shoot. It was therefore the first film in which Yimou did not have to use an expired film, so that the colors in the film corresponded to his vision for the first time. Ju Dou was shot using the outdated subtractive 3-color process with dye transfer copying technology, which gives the film particularly bright colors. During the pre-production phase of the film, in which Yimou was looking for a location, the Tian'anmen massacre took place in June 1989 , which interrupted work on the film for several months. However, the shooting could be continued because the authorities could no longer prohibit the filming due to contracts already concluded.

Judou was released in Japanese cinemas on April 21, 1990 and was shown in May 1990 at the Cannes International Film Festival thanks to the efforts of Japanese donors . The film was banned in China for two years. However, China had put the film in the running for an Oscar in the category of best foreign language film in 1990 and then tried unsuccessfully to withdraw the submission. In Germany, the film was shown in cinemas for the first time on September 19, 1991.

Awards (selection)

Judou ran in Cannes 1990 in the competition for the Palme d'Or . The film won the Gold Hugo for Best Feature Film at the Chicago International Film Festival that same year. At the Semana Internacional de Cine de Valladolid , Zhang Yimou was awarded the Golden Ear in 1990.

In 1991, Judou was the first Chinese film to be nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. Also in 1991, the film won an Amanda for Best Foreign Film. In 1992 the film received the Cóndor de Plata from the Association of Argentine Film Critics and Journalists for Best Foreign Film.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marie-Claire Huot: Liu Heng's Fuxi Fuxi: What about Nüwa? . In: Tonglin Lu (Ed.): Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Society . Suny Press, 1993, p. 88.
  2. ↑ a b c d Lawrence Chua: Zhang Yimou . In: BOMB, No. 35, spring 1991.
  3. ↑ Roger Ebert : Ju Dou . rogerebert.com, April 12, 1991.
  4. ^ Peter Rainer: "Ju Dou": Passion at Play . articles.latimes.com, March 6, 1991.