"The sky above, the earth beneath. Winter will eventually pass, and the sky won't always be dark. The day will come when the clouds blow away. Why should the courageous and upright Chinese people tolerate this kind of suffering?"
The focus of the movie camera is on a view through a window of a vast snowscape. As the male lead, Shen I- fu, utters these words, the audience of bitterness.
The "Cultural Revolution" has already become a turbulent page in modern Chinese history. For the masses on the mainland it has been a terrifying and agonizing struggle. In the last analysis, what has the Communist system brought to China in the past 31 years? This question is of utmost concern to every Chinese both at home and abroad.
For many years, the Central Motion Picture Corporation's most cherished aim has been to produce an objective and realistic movie on the situation on the mainland under Communist rule. After careful consideration, they gave the directorship of "The Coldest Winter in Peiping" to Pai Ching-jui, who has studied movie techniques in Italy. Since he favors realism in his work, he took on the job with some trepidation. But he soon began his task in earnest, taking part in planning the screenplay and spending over a month at the Defense Ministry and other government departments to obtain information on the main land.
At the same time he set the direction in which "Coldest Winter" was to move. It was to be factual objective, reasonable and detached, as opposed to didactic, abusive and pretentious. The story covers the time span from the Cultural Revolution through the criticism of the Gang of Four and Four Modernizations, with the changing of personnel at the National Academy of Sciences on the mainland as a backdrop. It portrays the violent struggle and the process of change in the minds of youth--ranging through hope to despair--that were characteristic of this period.
The plot describes a scientist re turning home after completing his studies, who is impressed by the Communists' apparently high efficiency, and the new atmosphere on the mainland. During the next few years, he goes through great tribulations. His father is driven to suicide and his mother is shot by Communist cadres, while his brother vanishes into the Red Guard for several years. He himself is forced into the Pei Ta Huang labor and re education camp for eight years. After the collapse of the Gang of Four, his freedom is restored and he returns to his old job. By this time his wife has already gone insane and lives in an asylum. Their daughter and younger brother, among others, are publishing underground newspapers urging the return of democracy.
Each event in the film is used to demonstrate the barren and unstable character of the Communist system. The Red Guards who followed the Mao Tse-tung-Chiang Ching slogan "To rebel is right," after being used to purge everyone who was different, were forced into exile in Sinkiang and Chinghai. Those who disobeyed were shot; those who went through the banishment were the old generals of the heroic revolutionary struggle censured as conspirators and turncoats. The scientist-hero who was striving to build up the country was condemned to "re-education" at Pei Ta Huang for having killed his father.
"Today you're a guest of honor; tomorrow you're thrown in jail." In a Communist society, there are no absolute truths or values.
Raised under the shadow of the Communist system, the masses on the mainland have no choice but to accept their fate. Their hope is that some day in the future their troubles will pass and springtime will return. In this movie, Ko Hsian-ting expresses the feeling eloquently: "The Chinese people are like a ball floating on the water, sometimes they are oppressed, but when they are released, they spring back up."
Immediately on its release, "The Coldest Winter in Peiping" earned a warm round of applause from all quarters. Most moviegoers said that the absence of slogans and doctrine are the main reasons why the movie has touched their hearts so persuasively.
Chou Yeh, a former Red Guard leader who escaped to freedom in 1973, was especially moved. "The opening scenes were variation of 'The East is Red', so right from the start I was transfixed. Then came the revolutionary opera depicted exactly as it was on the mainland. That really frightened me. When I saw the scenes depicting the gathering of the Red Guards in Peiping, my blood started to boil. It was just like being back in the days when I was a Red Guard myself."
He sighed: "All the characters in this movie are real to me. The purging of the scientist's father couldn't help but remind me of my own father's humiliation. My father's troubles were even worse, though. He had to do heavy labor in freezing conditions, pulling a heavy street roller with no shirt on his back and wearing only shorts. Only when he started to bleed did they let him rest. My mother also had to do hard labor. So the ordeal of Shen's family was very much like my own. This is why I can attest to the truth of this movie."
Although "The Coldest Winter in Peiping" may not be perfect, the screenplay, the direction, the actors, the sets all are up to the standards of the best Chinese movies.
Through the movie's objectivity, members of the audience see Chinese people who have the same faces, same blood and same language as they have, but who are living in a world of humiliation, torture and oppression. The feelings of shock and anger are difficult to describe in words. But there remains the belief that the dignity of the Chinese people cannot be abused forever, just as the sky won't always be dark.
[Picture Caption]
1. After fighting between Red Guard factions, Chou Cheng-hsien (Liu Yen-feng) tells Kang Hsiao-hsia (Ming Ming) "Revolution is a struggle for survival." 2. Lo Ling (Patricia Hu) suffers to the point of losing her sanity. 3. Pai Ching-jui, the director, objectively depicts the suffering of 900 million mainland Chinese.
1. Through disillusionment in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, underground publications started to urge a shift to democracy. 2. Lo Ling is dispatched by the Communists to spy on her lover, Shen I-fu, a scientist who has just returned from England. 3. The sprawled bodies of young children silently attest to the futile violence of internal Red Guard factionalism.
Lo Ling （Patricia Hu） suffers to the point of losing her sanity.
Pai Ching-jui, the director, objectively depicts the suffering of 900 million mainland Chinese.
Through disillusionment in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, underground publications started to urge a shift to democracy.
Lo Ling is dispatched by the Communists to spy on her lover, Shen I-fu, a scientist who has just returned from England.
The sprawled bodies of young children silently attest to the futile violence of internal Red Guard factionalism.
