There is a line of subtitles at the end of "Farewell My Concubine", saying that it is dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Hui Troupe's entry into Beijing and to Peking Opera, the quintessence of the Chinese art. Of course, later on, it was to pay tribute to his brother Leslie Cheung.

This is a 1993 film. At that time, Chen Kaige was still very young, and Ge You still had hair and had not yet become Uncle Ge. He played the role of Yuan Kewen, Yuan Shikai's romantic and suave fourth son and one of the four young men in Beijing. At that time, Gong Li was very beautiful and did not have the cold and depressing beauty in "The City of Golden Armor" later, and Huang Lei was still a young actor with only one line. At that time, my brother Leslie Cheung was not dead yet. This movie became his swan song.

I forgot whether it was in high school or the first two years of college. I watched "Farewell My Concubine" once, but I only remembered "Night Run" and "Sifan". For those bad past events such as Ju Xian hangs himself in his wedding clothes, and Duan Xiaolou and Cheng Dieyi expose each other in the light of the fire. These scenes are all unbearable for Xiaosier, but he selectively forgets them.

This is a literary and artistic film directed by Chen Kaige and starring Leslie Cheung, Gong Li, and Zhang Fengyi. It was released in Hong Kong, China on January 1, 1993.

The film is adapted from Li Bihua's novel of the same name. It revolves around the joys and sorrows of two Peking opera actors for half a century, and shows the thinking and understanding of traditional culture, people's living conditions and human nature. Li Bihua's novels are as good as ever, whether it's "Green Snake" or "Farewell My Concubine", even "Rouge Button" made me thrilling and kept me awake at night.

It turns out that good novels can reach people's hearts and penetrate their souls. Good movies too.

"Farewell My Concubine" has won many awards along the way. For example, it won the Palme d'Or, the highest award at the 46th Cannes International Film Festival, the US Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the International Federation of Film Critics Award. Best Movie".

Duan Xiaolou and Cheng Dieyi, the overlord Yu Ji in and out of the play, have been brothers for decades, and they can no longer tell whether it is love, friendship or family affection. To be more precise, it’s a bit of everything.

Duan Xiaolou and Juxian, from prostitutes to loving couples, help each other and help each other, but it is also difficult to tell whether it is love or family affection.

Cheng Dieyi picked up Xiao Si and raised him. Because of their similar life experiences, he suddenly felt compassion and taught each other his unique skills. There should have been a teacher-student relationship between the two, even a father-son relationship. mutual affection. But as soon as the exercise started, Xiao Si turned into a white-eyed wolf and started to attack Cheng Dieyi.

"Farewell My Concubine" is a purely fictional plot, but it reproduces the historical reality in the context of the times. Extremely sad and chilling to the bone, this is a typical example of "Chinese tragedy". It even has a "sad" flavor of black comedy.

The most typical one is the final scene of exposing and criticizing each other, which is also the climax of the whole play. In the past seven minutes, almost all the beautiful human emotions, the most valuable things in life, love and trust, family affection, friendship, etc., were all burned in the mutual exposure.

The historical background of the climactic scene of "Farewell My Concubine" happened in an era when the law was completely trampled on. Although Confucius, who advocated "relatives hiding from each other", was dead for more than two thousand years, he was still unavoidable. Flying ashes; it is a common practice in society for fathers and sons, brothers, and husbands and wives to inform each other. When parents are knocked down, children must "draw a clear line" with their parents in order to show their loyalty. It is best to "step on another foot" so that the parents "will never be able to stand up again."

More typically, in order to show their revolutionary determination, they even led their "comrades" to ransack their own homes and beat their "reactionary parents" to death on the spot... Most people rely on the most valuable things in human society. The living spiritual pillar suddenly collapsed in such a torrent of times.

So, "Farewell My Concubine" is not only a tragedy for Cheng Dieyi, but also a tragedy for everyone.

If you understand this scene, you will also understand three thousand years of Chinese history.

Twenty-eight years later, those people in and outside the film have different destinations. Some people’s souls have returned and their characters complement each other. For example, Leslie Cheung and Chen Kaige have never made such a masterpiece. In the movie, Huang Lei and Jiang Wenli later became the protagonists, while Gong Huang will always be the protagonist.

More people are like those ordinary people in the change of history. They just changed a set of clothes, a hairstyle, and a set of furniture. The process of history will not bring many changes to them. Because they have been crushed into dust in the smoke and dust of history.