Male Relationships and Power in East Asian Film

           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.