[Neither Mr. Feng nor Huayi Brothers Media, the film’s main backer and distributor, have explained why the film’s release was abruptly canceled. Huayi Brothers declined to comment when called.]
By
Chris Buckley
 |
|
Feng Xiaogang after
winning the best director award for “I Am Not Madame
Bovary” at the Golden Horse
Awards in Taipei, Taiwan, last year. The release
of his new film, “Youth,” has been
indefinitely postponed.
Credit Tyrone Siu/Reuters
|
BEIJING
— One of China’s most
popular directors, Feng Xiaogang, was determined to triumph at the box office
with the release of his new film “Youth” during the weeklong National Day
holiday.
In the run-up to the film’s expected release
later this week, Mr. Feng and his actors had been touring China, promoting the
romantic drama set against the Cultural Revolution and China’s brief, harrowing
war against Vietnam.
But then Mr. Feng’s premiere was abruptly
canceled.
“Youth” appears to have fallen victim to
official jitters ahead of a Communist Party congress next month, which is
expected to give China’s president, Xi Jinping, five more years in power,
Chinese film buffs have said.
Mr. Feng said on Sunday that the release of
“Youth” had been indefinitely postponed, meaning the premiere would not
coincide with the holiday, one of the most popular weeks at the country’s
cinemas.
“Due to reasons that leave me no choice, the
nationwide roadshow for ‘Youth’ can only go this far,” Mr. Feng said at a
tearful news conference in Shanghai. “We have to say farewell to everyone
before it even started, and I feel helpless.”
“I apologize to all the filmgoers who’d
pre-bought tickets,” he said. “I apologize most of all to them. I’ve let them
down.”
Neither Mr. Feng nor Huayi Brothers Media,
the film’s main backer and distributor, have explained why the film’s release
was abruptly canceled. Huayi Brothers declined to comment when called.
Users of Weibo, a popular microblogging site,
suggested that Mr. Feng had delayed the release as a publicity stunt, or in
fear of a poor showing at the box office.
But Mr. Feng said he had no choice. Some film
critics and fans have speculated that senior officials stepped in ahead of the
party congress, set to open in Beijing on Oct. 18.
About 2,300 delegates, most of them
officials, will gather next month in the capital. Historically, the party is
wary of promulgating anything that is critical, controversial or even downbeat
ahead of the meeting.
“There are rumors, but no solid facts, about
what happened,” Zhang Xianmin, a film critic in Beijing, said about the film’s
postponed release. “It’s possible that this was all about boosting the market
for the film, but there could also be substantial censorship problems.
Commercially, it doesn’t seem to make sense to postpone. Delaying distribution
will certainly cost.”
Chinese culture officials have not commented
on the delay of the release.
Security at the congress, like other big
events in China, will be tight, a measure meant to ensure that no protests,
accidents, controversies or surprises sully the spectacle. Roads leading into
Beijing are under tighter security, extra guards are manning buses in the city
and officials and the police across China have been admonished to make sure
nothing upsets the weeklong meeting.
“The only thing that is certain is that
pulling this was not a performance directed by Feng Xiaogang,” one film
enthusiast said on WeChat, a popular Chinese social media service.
“Its problem probably has something to do
with the war,” the comment said. “It’s not in keeping with the gentle warmth of
this harmonious society.”
Many Chinese people, especially in Beijing,
become inured to the restrictions and security that surrounds big official
meetings.
Yet Mr. Feng and others who worked on “Youth”
appeared surprised by the sudden cancellation after cinemas had already started
selling tickets.
At the news conference, Mr. Feng did not
disguise his frustration.
“I tell you sincerely that right now I’m
feeling somewhat distraught,” he said. “We wanted this film to hit the screens
more than anyone.”
Liang Pengfei, a Chinese film critic wrote on
a Chinese news site, Observer, that the losses caused by suddenly postponing
the film’s release “can be estimated to run to tens of millions” in Chinese
renminbi.
Mr. Feng, 59, is a popular director who has
learned to work within, and sometimes adroitly nudge against, China’s heavy
boundaries of censorship. He often sets his stories during dramatic historical
events, such as China’s massive Tangshan earthquake of 1976, and a famine in
the 1940s.
Yet Mr. Feng also steers away from overt
political messages, preferring to dwell on personal drama. “Youth” adds a
patina of romance to its depiction of Mao’s traumatic Cultural Revolution.
“Youth” had already passed the scrutiny of
Chinese censors, and was shown at the Toronto Film Festival this month. But the
memories and themes evoked by the film may have prompted senior officials to
reverse approval for its release during this sensitive political season.
Based on a novel of the same name, “Youth”
tells the story of He Xiaoping, a young woman in a People’s Liberation Army
dance troupe, who ends up dragged into China’s brief war with Vietnam in 1979.
Before she joined the troupe, her father was condemned as an enemy of the party
and sent to a labor camp.
These hints at China’s harsh past may have
been too much for officials.
Under Mr. Xi, historians and writers have
come under increased pressure to steer away from discussing the Cultural
Revolution, the convulsive and often bloody political campaign that Mao
launched in 1966. The 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution
passed last year in almost total official silence, and unofficial commemoration
was discouraged.
China went to war with Vietnam in 1979 after
Deng Xiaoping, who had recently returned to power, pushed to punish Vietnam for
occupying Cambodia and overthrowing the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, a Chinese
ally.
The People’s Liberation Army’s incursions
into Vietnam, however, did not go as planned, and even today some Chinese
veterans of the war say their sacrifice and needs have been ignored by the
government.
“This is not extolling war,” Mr. Feng said of
“Youth” last month. “It’s to make audiences see the cruelty and terror of war.”
On Sunday, he said a new release date for
“Youth” would be announced later.
This is not the first time the filmmaker has
had to scramble after censors stepped in. Last year, his film “I Am Not Madame
Bovary” was released in November, to disappointing box office results, after
its National Day holiday release was also postponed, although commercial
reasons may have figured then.
Adam Wu and Karoline Kan contributed
research.
Follow Chris Buckley on Twitter:
@ChuBailiang.
