Another of our mythical award winners of 1926 is a tale of romance and self-sacrifice, with
some pointed observations about class conflicts. We discuss it further following the plot synopsis.
Yujiebingqing (1926) 玉洁冰清 (Why Not Her?)
(alternate English title: Pure and Noble)
Minxin. B&W. Silent. 11 reels. Direction: Bu Wancang. Screenplay: Ouyang Yuqian. Cinematography: Liang Linguang. Chinese program notes: Ouyang Yuqian. English program notes: Xu Houyu. Asst. Director: Tang Jie. Cast: Zhang Zhiyun (Kong Suxian), Liu Yushan (Kong Fengchun), Lin Chuchu (Qian Mengqi), Ouyang Yuqian (Qian Weide), Gong Jianong (Huang Bojian), Zhu Yaoting (Huang Fayuan), Shen Lixia (Huang's wife), Tang Jie (Chen Youcai), Li Dandan (Kong Qiongxian), Xiao Ying (sublandlord), Wang Mengshi (Zhu Ming), Dai Buping (Qiu Dawang).
[Zhang Zhiyun as the fisherman's daughter]
Wealthy landlord Qian Weide has amassed his fortune by exploiting the poor in his area, charging them exorbitant rent and lending money at usurious rates. His daughter Mengqi loves Huang Bojian, the son of one of his debtors. But the young man drifts apart from Mengqi because of the despicable way her father treats his. Bojian goes away to college, and graduates with such high honors in economics, he receives a commendation from the provincial governor. Impressed with the young man's early achievements and future promise, Qian Weide wants his daughter Mengqi betrothed to Bojian, an offer the young man rejects. But his father, seeing a way out of debt, orders his son to marry the girl. To get away and think, the depressed Bojian goes for a bike ride in the country, where he has an accident and is badly hurt. The daughters of a fisherman named Kong come upon the injured young man and take him to their home. Under the attentive care of the fisherman and his two daughters, Bojian recovers, during which time he and the elder daughter Suxian fall in love.
[Ouyang Yuqian making sure his villain is sufficiently despicable]
When Qian Weide learns what has happened he forces the Kongs to move out of the area, which infuriates Bojian. He smashes the inscribed tablet on his family's mansion, then leaves for Shanghai, where he lives in poverty while writing a book, "Economic History of China." To help him, Mengqi covertly sells his manuscript, and the book is published to much praise. Before long, Mengqi's younger brother dies, and she uses this as an opportunity to persuade her father to change his ways and cancel all the debts owed to him as a memorial to his son.
While visiting her brother's grave, Mengqi happens upon the fisherman's daughter living in a cave, out of her mind over missing Bojian. Over Suxian's name, Mengqi writes to Bojian, seeking a meeting at the cave. He arrives just in time to rescue Suxian, who is about to throw herself into a river. When Suxian sees him she immediately regains her senses, and the couple is happily reunited. Mengqi keeps her feelings to herself, but each day she reads from Bojian's book and thinks of him.
Comment:
This was the first film made by the Minxin film studio after Li Minwei moved its operations from Hong Kong to Shanghai. The literal Chinese title translates as "Pure as jade and clean as ice," an idiom for "pure and noble," which has been used as an alternate English title. It was a romance, dealing with human feelings, particularly the entangled feelings of three people.
Huang Bojian, the principal male character, reflected the class consciousness of Ouyang Yuqian. Unlike so many first-time Shanghai filmmakers who were usually young people in their 20s, Ouyang was 37, a veteran stage actor and writer. By the time he made "Why Not Her," he had obviously acquired a sense of outrage at the inequalities of Chinese society. Through Bojian's fury at the actions of the landlord (played by Ouyang himself), the writer was expressing his own contempt for China's economically powerful who ruthlessly exploited the less well-off under their control. But the character of Bojian was not the one Ouyang wanted the audience to empathize with: rather, it was the loyal and self-sacrificing Mengqi that Ouyang's title described. Through his rejection of Mengqi, a friend from childhood who obviously loved him, Bojian was not a heroic figure, a righteous advocate for equality and justice, but rather an extremist radical, and a pretty childish one at that.
But behavioral extremes could also apply to the rest of the characters in "Why Not Her?" There is nothing simple about the contradictions between them – the good are extremely good, the bad extremely bad – but their interactions still revealed Ouyang Yuqian's basic message, the complexity of relationships and personal feelings in a class society. As he wrote in an article that same year:
"Humans are creatures of contradiction, and it is these contradictions that make human affairs so complex and varied. For example, different individuals may approach the same issue with resistance or concession, with power or weakness, with acceptance or repulsion, with selfishness or self-sacrifice. Individuals are not equal in strength of character, and in their psychological makeup will always swing between stability and instability." -- [Ouyang, Yuqian. "Dao 'Sannian yihou' ganyan" 导三年以后感言 (Feelings on directing 'Three Years Later'). Minxin Special Issue on 'Three Years Later'. Shanghai: Minxin Film Company, 1926.]
