Transnational Representations by James Wicks

Author:James Wicks [Wicks, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Film Studies
ISBN: 9789888268955
Publisher: HongKongUP
Published: 2014-11-28T06:00:00+00:00

4: Gender Negotiation in Song Cunshou’s Story of Mother and Taiwan Cinema of the Early 1970s

In 1975 the Taiwan government’s most prestigious film prize, the Golden Horse for best film, was awarded to Director Li Xing for his Land of the Undaunted (Wu tu wu min), a period piece produced in the zhanzheng wenyi jupian (literary art war film) tradition. The film, set in China during the Japanese Occupation period, traces both the life and times of inspirational Headmaster Du (Wang Yin) who will not give in to his Japanese oppressors, and of his students and teachers, who must make their own difficult choices between preserving the dignity of China or giving in to the aggression of those who would destroy it. When imprisoned for his acts of resistance, Headmaster Du informs his Japanese oppressor: “You read our Chinese texts because it is the basis of your culture, your culture is inherited from China.… The Chinese are a strong and resilient people who will never surrender!” Certainly, there would be many profitable ways to analyze Land of the Undaunted; however, as the film still below makes clear, a focus on the film’s gender dynamics is particularly rewarding.

In the film’s final sequence, the teachers and students struggle to understand the death of their headmaster, who has died while in captivity. The headmaster’s passing erased all hope for the students and instructors he left behind. Yet, in a symbolic act of defiance, an instructor named Mr. Li (Qin Han) reads the headmaster’s final letter to an enthusiastic and moved assembly of students. Since the Japanese military police cannot stand for such behavior, Mr. Li is carted off to prison for political insubordination. But then, in a final act of civil disobedience, the headmaster’s daughter Ms. Du (Lin Fengjiao) picks up the letter and continues reading where Mr. Li had left off.

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