If you’ve been to the cinemas lately, scrolled through the Action catalogue on Netflix looking for a guilty pleasure, or seen that video of Keanu Reeves in gun training for John Wick 2, you’ve more than likely been exposed to some form of Hong Kong action cinema; either in its purest form (Jackie Chan has been very prevalent in Netflix’s recent additions), or through some form of cultural transposition (Kill Bill, Kingsman and its ilk). Though originally popular through its roots in the kung-fu films of the 70s, Hong Kong action cinema has prevailed in the Hollywood system via its influential triad films: a modern reworking of the punches and kicks thrown by Bruce Lee into a hail of gunfire discharged by Chow Yun-fat, often dubbed “gun-fu”. These Hong Kong crime films—typically investing themselves in the lives of triads—were popularised in the 80s by John Woo and his breakout film, A Better Tomorrow, which paved the way for a long line of highly stylised, crime-centric action films. That Woo and Yun-fat would later move into Hollywood cinema (Woo successfully with Hard Target in 1993, Yun-fat less successfully with The Replacement Killers in 1998), the idea that the choreography and stylisation that made Hong Kong’s action cinema so popular would later be transposed comes as no surprise.

The dynamic between good and evil—manifesting in the dichotomy between the police and the triads—that Woo’s Hong Kong work had become renowned for would find its epitome in his 1997 Hollywood feature, Face/Off. The bodies that usually danced between the light and the dark would become literal in their swapping of identity (Travolta as Cage, Cage as Travolta), and this Hollywoodised take on embodying the split dynamic that popularised Woo’s work would prove influential back at home with Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs in 2002.

The notion of high-concept that the plot of Woo’s Face/Off functions as finds itself prevalent in Infernal Affairs‘ narrative. Two guys: one a cop, one a triad; both working undercover in the environment of the other—surely the perfect elevator pitch. It’s no wonder then that Brad Pitt’s production company picked up the rights in January of 2002 for a Western interpretation of the source material. Scorsese’s The Departed acts a glowing example of the increasingly globalised notion of cinema, where influences are traded mutually, making the distinction between national cinemas only harder and harder to distinguish. Keanu Reeves practically owes his career to John Woo, and the two have never worked together—who would’ve thought?

With Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002), we find a director drawn to the successes of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Where Lee’s film was a commercial and critical success in the West, Yimou sought to replicate this, diverging from his arthouse modus operandi after observing the need to make a popular film that could not only “compete against the Hollywood product” (given China’s entry into the World Trade Organization and the relaxation of restrictions on imported foreign films), but “earn the respect of government authorities” in the process of legitimising the arthouse film industry in the future (Levitin, 2006). However, where Yimou goes wrong—according to Jacqueline Levitin in “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero and House of the Flying Daggers: Interpreting Gender Thematics in the Contemporary Swordplay Film — A View From the West”—is in his misreading of the reasons that made Lee’s film such a hit: its embrace of “all aspects of women’s contradictory lives” in ancient China, namely through Zhang Ziyi’s Jiao, whose tale is ultimately the most tragic. Where the narrative of Crouching saw its female characters (Jiao Long, Jade Fox, Yu Shu Lien) fighting against, or used as an examination of, the patriarchal boundaries of their time, the women in Yimou’s blockbuster films no longer strive to break out of or confront some oppression “in a struggle against injustice” as in his previous, female-focused films (Levitin, 2006). Hero, then, is more concerned with replicating the fantastical elements of wuxia films popularised in the West by Lee’s film, or in Yimou’s continued exploration of father figures than his exploration of the tragic lives of women in China’s then-feudal, patriarchal society (Xihe, 2004)—thus deeming the film “firmly in the camp of patriarchy” (Levitin, 2006), a departure from the director’s previous, culturally critical works.

Comparatively, Jafar Panahi’s Offside (2006) offers a continued exploration of women in contemporary Iran. Panahi, working under the influence of another, arguably more successful director Abbas Kiarostami—much like how Yimou drew inspiration from the popularity of Lee—creates a cinema that is devout in its examination and scrutiny of the boundaries constructed by Iran’s social and political structures. Offside, perhaps more apt in its comparisons to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than Hero, places women at the centre and examines the structures that keep them disadvantaged. Panahi emphasises this through the claustrophobic use of his camera, the frame as a literal and metaphorical container for the central female characters and their limited perspective (Danks, 2007). Moments of cinematic freedom are restricted to short bursts as the camera is often fixed to one location, be it the cage that the women are forced to reside in for the majority of the narrative, or the buses that take these characters to and ultimately from the stadium. Through this framing we are given a sense of the frustration these women feel; neither we, nor them, with the exception of a few small moments of freedom—which even then are presented only when the camera follows a male character—get to see the field in which the entire film is based around. Our understanding of the game is limited to sound; the sonic elements of the cheering crowd, or the commentary by one of the guards. Panahi’s utilisation of these fundamentally cinematic aspects gives us minor insight into a fraction of the larger injustices that women continue to face day-to-day in contemporary Iran, and beyond. Where Crouching ultimately proves tragic for its female characters, still trapped within the confides of their society, Offside, in its powerful final moments, gives its characters a moment of pure liberation: a national celebration of soccer that—if only for a brief moment—tears down the country’s rigid boundaries and replaces them with something less tangible; a sliver of optimism gliding through the crowd.

References:

Chen Xihe. ” On the Father Figures in Zhang Yimou’s Films: From Red Sorghum to Hero” Asian Cinema. Vol. 15, No 2 (Fall/ Winter 2004) pp. 133-140

Additional Reading: Jacqueline Levitin. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers: Interpreting Gender Thematics in the Contemporary Swordplay Film.” Asian Cinema 17.1 (Spring/Summer 2006): 166-82

Adrian Danks. “The Rules of the Game: Jafar Panahi’s Offside.” Directors Suite: Jafar Panahi – Offside [4,000 word DVD booklet]. Melbourne: Madman Entertainment, 2007.