Across East Asian Film
male relationships dominate film. Each region has its own way of portraying the
friendship and balance of power between the male characters of their films. The
way these films cover male relationships is often quite different from how most
Hollywood films portray them. Relationships between the men in these films can
at times be almost homoerotic in how close the two are. Often when the
relationships are equal they tend to be ill-fated, possibly making a subtle
hint at how society can never let men appear too close together without the
relationship appearing flawed. Rarely does a relationship form and maintain
without some external force tearing them apart. In some cases the male
characters can’t even form relationships. Some films focus entirely on the
independence of the male character as a driving theme and some contain a
relationship between two men constantly vying for power
In Hong Kong film, there seems to be a focus on tough
independent male characters. Cheng drives the plot of Big Boss almost entirely by his own actions. His family is
essentially there to be kidnapped or hurt to inspire him to action. Cheng
actually hardly bonds with anyone in this film, male or female. The
relationship between Chiao Mei and Cheng is really only realized at the end. He
doesn’t interact with her too much during the course of the film. The only
significant relationship here is between Cheng and Hsiao Mi, the big boss himself.
Ignoring the fact that this is a sort of hero/villain relationship, it’s still
not even a very “intimate” relationship. Cheng’s family actually interacts more
with him when they try to get him to treat the workers better. Cheng is
essentially there to come in and stop Hsiao Mi once things have finally gone
too far. The closest they get is when they fight, and even then there is little
dialogue between them. There’s a power struggle there, certainly, but not much
else.
Jackie Chan’s Drunken
Master changes things up slightly by having multiple types of male
relationships. First and foremost, there is the master and student relationship
between Wong Fei-hung and Yuen Siu-tien. Here, there are a couple of different
issues of power occurring simultaneously between the two. First, on a rather
shallow level we have physical differences between the men such as height and
age. Wong Fei-hung is both younger and taller, which leaves him with the
perception that he has power over Yuen Siu-tien. In reality, Yuen Siu-tien’s
experience grants him a much greater level of power than Wong Fei-hung could
have expected. In terms of pure fighting skills, Yuen Siu-tien clearly holds
the power here. However, this isn’t the only relationship these two men have.
Over the course of the movie, there are moments where they forget their
physical differences and appear as equals, seated at equal heights in the frame
of the film while drinking and talking amiably. At times they share both a
master/mentor relationship and a friendship on equal footing. However, we also
get moments that remind us of our differences once again such as the scene
where Wong Fei-hung drinks himself to sleep after their light-hearted moment
together and Yuen Siu-tien quietly recites a poem to himself. They may appear
as equals at times, but the film reminds us that Yuen Siu-tien is a man of a
different time and cannot completely coexist with Wong Fei-hung.
Wong
Fei-hung also has a more dynamic relationship than Cheng with his adversary
Thunderleg. Thunderleg could have just kept his display of power over Wong to a
simple fight and left him to recover. Instead, Thunderleg goes for an extra
display of dominance by forcing Wong to crawl underneath him and he proceeds to
kick him over afterwards. He also makes him burn his clothes. He puts an
unusual amount of effort into making sure Wong appears as weak and powerless as
possible. At this point their closeness is almost at the point of homoeroticism
(at least to a Western perspective).
The
Japanese films in our viewing list followed a similar method of presenting men
who worked alone and asserted their dominance through their independence. For
example, Ashitaka of Princess Mononoke
is entirely focused on getting rid of his curse and achieving balance between
Irontown and the forest. His relationship with either side is not portrayed as
particularly strong. He doesn’t strike up a positive or negative relationship
with anyone female or male. He is most similar to Cheng from Big Boss though at least Cheng had some
semblance of a romantic relationship and a degree of connection with his male
cousins.
Ikiru
is the only Japanese film where I feel the main character had a few significant
male relationships. First and foremost, there are Watanabe’s male coworkers who
at first appear indifferent to him, but after his death they appear to be
inspired by his work. Of course in the end they all turn out to be nowhere near
as brave as Watanabe and fall back into their old ways. For a moment though,
Watanabe almost appears as a mentor to his younger coworkers. Itō Yunosuke, the
novelist, shares a more interesting relationship with Watanabe as the power
distribution between them is quite ambiguous. At times, Watanabe shows the
experience of age over his young companion during their night out. He brings a
sense of maturity to a night that’s meant to bring him back to a youthful time.
There are other moments where Itō appears to try and teach Watanabe. He’s
teaching him to live his life and not dwell on his sickness. While they party,
they lose sight of their age and experience differences and come to an equal
level of power. They act as if they’re good friends and forget everything else.
This kind of friendly relationship can also be seen in
films like A Better Tomorrow. Here,
the two characters Sung Tse-Ho and Mark. The difference here is that the two
men are roughly the same age and are from the start established as close
friends. We see them tickling each other and just generally a lot physically
closer to each other than Hollywood would portray an adult relationship between
two men. There also never seems to be a dip in the power distribution between
the two men. They are staunchly defensive of each other and never consider one
to be in a higher position than the other in the crime world. The key tension
between the two results from Mark’s willingness to continue the gangster
lifestyle and Sung Tse-Ho’s willingness to stop. The resulting tension
eventually culminates in Mark’s death as he is shot down. Though by this point
Mark has accepted and event tried to defend Sung Tse-Ho’s decision, this near
perfect relationship cannot be allowed to continue and the family relationship
between Sung Tse-Ho and Sung Tse-Kit is emphasized instead.
In Korean film, there is a set of relationships that
match up with the friendship of Sung Tse-Ho and Mark in terms of their
equality. However, the tension bubbling beneath the surface is at such a higher
level that the inevitable divide is so much more violent. Joint Security Area highlights a seemingly impossible relationship
between a pair of North Korean soldiers and a pair of South Korean Soldiers.
The film continually bombards the viewer with examples of the kind of propaganda
that leads each side to believe they are the strongest and that the other is
weak/evil. As the friendship between the soldiers grows, the tension of the
each side’s propaganda still follows them. During the film, the soldiers
attempt to play with these notions with scenes like the Choco pie scene where
Sergeant Oh jokes that one day North Korea will create the greatest
confectionary treats in the world. It’s one of the more believable friendships
on film despite the context. Unfortunately as with Sung Tse-Ho and Mark, the friendship
doesn’t last as the entrance of a North Korean soldier forces the soldiers to
remember their roots and fire at each other.
Mainland China has the most interesting male relationship
in film through Farewell My Concubine.
To the director, the pair of Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou are an example of a
very close male friendship. As Duan believes, the director is under the
impression that Cheng is just obsessed with his role as Duan’s concubine. With
this impression we get a very lopsided balance of power between the two despite
their supposed friendship. Duan is represented as the king while Cheng is the
concubine, appearing more as a servant than as a partner. Viewers, particularly
in the West, tend to come away with the impression that Cheng and Duan were in
a romantic relationship. Cheng appears jealous of Juxian, not because of Duan
spending more time with her, but more because of the reason that Juxian has
married Duan. It seems clear from their constant physical closeness in their
youth to Cheng’s obsession of Duan that Cheng at least wanted something more
than a friendship from Duan. In their youth, they share power as they watch out
for each other and try to protect each other from the rough leadership of the
opera school masters. However, when Duan marries Juxian, the two begin to drift
apart until they meet the same fate as the men of J.S.A. and A Better Tomorrow
where one of the two loses his life.
In presenting a heroic figure, East Asian film tends to
favor a strong independent hero as seen in the Japanese and Hong Kong films so
as to condense his level of power. Yet when a friendship needs to be presented,
male bonding is shown to be much more tightly knit in comparison to Hollywood
film. The relationships of the men in A
Better Tomorrow, J.S.A., and Farewell My Concubine may be ill-fated,
but there’s no denying the level of balance that can occur between them in
their prime. The closeness almost reaches homo-erotic levels (in some films
more than others), but within the region it is rarely thought of as more than a
close relationship, something that really couldn’t be done well in Western
film.
