Die Prinzessin Yang

The Empress is dead, and Chinese Emperor Masayuki Mori mourns endlessly. Scullery maid Machiko Kyô is chosen by her relatives and trained to please the Emperor, but it is her frankness as much as her beauty which pleases him. When she is made his consort, however, her relatives call in favors for wealth and position, until the populace demand their deaths, and hers.

It's another of Kenji Mizoguchi's beautifully made and exquisite dramas, full of long, slow moving shots, and actors who move silently, but movingly. Mizoguchi had started as a performer of women's roles. When he began to direct in the early 1920s, he directed these pictures, because, as he later said, "When I was working for Nikkatsu, the company already had Murata Minoru making films featuring heroes, so for balance they made me do films featuring heroines. Also, I am very quarrelsome and so when I work there is always the possibility of a fight, but I can't very well slug an actress." He was another of those tough, artistic directors who feigned a low-brow attitude, like John Ford.

I thought there was much that was ambiguous about Miss Kyô's character here. Is she being honest, or frank? Are her actions in returning to her humble origins honest, or a miscalculated power play? Is my uncertainty because I am a cynical westerner, not the intended audience, or because that is how Mizoguchi intended me to think?

Regardless of how I react to the story raised to the level of fantastic legend of this movie, it certainly is a beautiful thing to look at. For the moment, that's enough.

PRINCESS YANG KWI FEI is an early collaboration betwene Japan's Daiei studio and Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers, and it's very much a sumptuous-looking historical drama. I'm not sure if it's based on a true story but it certainly feels like it is. The story is about an ageing Chinese emperor and a family who gradually insinuate themselves into his court, causing a popular revolt as a result. The film looks Chinese but feels Japanese with a mainly Japanese cast and the usual quietly mannered performances you tend to find in Japanese cinema. It's not the most engrossing out there, but a good example of this genre.

Yang Kwei Fei (719 - 756) was the most beloved concubine of emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty. She was the last one of the great ancient beauties of China, the other ones being Xi Shi (7th to 6th century BC), Wang Zhaojun (1st century BC) and Diaochan (3rd century AD). All of these women were favourites of kings. The story of Yang Kwei Fei hs been told by the poet Po Chu I (772 - 846) in his poem "A song of unending sorrow".

"Princess Yang Kwi Fei" is one of the last films of Kenji Mizoguchi and one of his few films in color. The color palette used is typical Chinese, as is the story, but to be honest my knowledge about Chinese culture was not enough to notice that myself. It is not a coincidence that a Japanese director adapted this story because it was introduced in Japanese culture as a Noh play as early as the 15th century.

In the booklet that accompanied the DVD an interpretation of the film was offered based on the untranslatable Japenese term "yugen". This interpretation was a little too philosophical to my taste.

When I was watching the movie my interpretation was one of a strange mix of European folk tales, mostly Shakespearean.

There are elements of: Cinderella (of course not by Shakespeare): the neglected stepdaughter whose great beauty is suddenly discovered.

Macbeth: The Yang family trying to grab power and become the leading family.

King Lear: The old emperor that is cheated by his son.

The difference is in the mix. Lead characters Yang Kwei Fei and emperor Xuanzong are not Lady Macbeth and Macbeth respectively. On the contrary, they are rather 180 degrees different! She is used as a bate and he is a rather naive victim. The real Macbeth's and lady Macbeth's are the brothers and sisters of Yang Kwei Fei.

"Princess Yang Kwei Fei" is not considered one of the master pieces of Kenji Mizoguchi. It nevertheless surprised me, and in a positive way. From the three Japanese directors of the 50's Akira Kurosawa is considered the one who translated Shakespeare into Japanese culture. In this film Mizoguchi proves that he also is capable of integrating Shakespearean elements into his movies. That the moving ending reminds of "Ugetsu Monogatari" (1953), a universally recognized masterpiece of Mizoguchi, is the finishing touch.

Like with 'Zangiku monogatari', Mizoguchi has made a very beautiful film. The long tracking shots, deep focus editing, and vibrant colors are gorgeous. Yet the story in 'Yang Kwei fei", just like in Mizo's 'Zangiku monogatari' and 'The Crucified Lovers', is very typical and unexceptional. Be prepared to see ideal archetypes of perfectly virtous self-sacrificing women, stupid greedy and cruel men, and did I mention?...the cruelties of feudalism. I think such a simple story set during feudalism is a weakness in this film. It leaves a viewer commonly thinking: feudalism sucks (boy that's new), it's good it's over,...what's next? This is a perfectly valid critique. Mizoguchi's vastly better films are his realistic masterworks from 1036: 'Osaka Elegy' and 'Sisters of the Gion', as well as his late more retrained masterpieces 'Ugetsu', 'Sansho Dayu', and 'Life of Oharu'.

I remember seeing this film more than two years ago, and while the entire story is not very memorable (I could probably not tell everything that happens in it now, which is perhaps more my fault than the filmmaker), I have a fond memory of seeing it in visual beauty. Kenji Mizogichi, a filmmaker I admire from Ugetsu, has here a very lushly made film, with perfectly constructed sets that spark a tinge of both fable and centuries-gone reality, and costumes that compliment the color photography. And that part, of capturing the images, is maybe the best thing that can be recommendable about the film. For a film about a Princess who was once lower on the ranks in the Emperor's home and becomes the Emperor's love interest, it provides such opportunities for a real vision to set in to guide it all.

Mizoguchi provides it with his cinematographer Kôhei Sugiyama in order sometimes for the film to be told almost all on visual terms (the filmmaker was most prolific in the silent-film era). So in the end, even as the story becomes a little cluttered with some scenes, it's never too complex due to the basics that the filmmaker is going for- and probably why it was picked up by Buena Vista distribution in the 1950s- a beautiful scope of Japan's regal side mixed with some of the lower classes. It's like a Shakespearean tale if it was superimposed into Japan and given a touch of that lost-era of color photography that was only matched by Powell/Pressburger's films.