Brigitte Lin has two faces, feminine and masculine. These two aspects have evolved subtly in the final phase of her career: her grace was obscured, turning her into a drug dealer who roams around the city; her masculine spirit has been altered, making her a schizophrenic wandering in the Jianghu, the world of Chinese wuxia movies .
These two very special female characters are a real swan song for this cinematic star adored by an entire generation .
In the 70s, romantic films were extremely popular in Taiwan and Brigitte Lin (Lin Ching-hsia) was undoubtedly their undisputed queen. After the disappearance of Chiung Yao’s love films, her stage moved to Hong Kong. Her most classical image was in Tsui Hark’s films, where she played in men’s clothes. In
Peking Opera Blues (1986) she plays the revolutionary Tsao Wan, then we see her in the role of Dongfang Bubai (Asia the Invincible) in
Swordsman II (1992). At that time, Brigitte Lin was known as ‘the most beautiful woman in Hong Kong and Taiwan’: in romantic movies, she moved the audience by means of her charm, but she was also intriguing in men’s clothes, and that is how she became the biggest movie diva for 20 years .
Genre films also strengthened her beauty and temperament. She participated in dozens of love films that capture her glory and elegance: she not only was a top quality star in the 70s film industry, but also a cultural icon of an entire era. After
Swordsman II, he starred in over ten wuxia films that show her yin/yang dichotomy (feminine/ masculine but also evil/good), making her a celebrity throughout Asia and marking the last glory period of Hong Kong cinema .
Both as a delicate oriental woman or the warrior Dongfang Bubai, Brigitte Lin’s gender traits have always been an important part of her career, and in the final phase of her journey, after knowing Wong Karwai, her gender image has become even more intriguing. Brigitte Lin announced her marriage in 1994. In only that one year she first played in
Chungking Express and then in
Ashes of Time. For many years, critics focused on Wong Kar-wai’s thematic and stylistic analysis, without discussing gender issues in his films. However, if we take Brigitte Lin as an example, not only did she show a change of gender characteristics in the two films, but she also established a dialogue with Hong Kong cinema by means of the drug-dealer and Murong Yin. Wong Kar-wai has thus composed a cultural identity belonging to his city .
From Jia Baoyu to Dongfang Bubai
Before talking about Brigitte Lin in Wong Kar-wai’s films, it is necessary to examine some of her previous gender roles with revolutionary features. Shortly after entering the film circle, in the war movie
Eight Hundred Heroes she had already played the brave soldier girl who took the national flag risking her life. However The first who saw Brigitte Lin’s
travesti potential was not actually Tsui Hark, but Li Han-hsiang, who in 1977, had her play Jia Baoyu in
The Dream of the Red Chamber, where she was noted for her wonderful clothing and exquisite bearing .
In the 80s, she decided to move to Hong Kong and develop her career. She began playing the mythological Ice Queen in the wuxia film
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983), a vengeful wife in the thriller
Lady in Black (1987), trying new artistic paths. In
Peking Opera Blues (1986), when Tsui Hark made her play the shorthaired revolutionary girl in man’s clothes, the effect was surprisingly good and her handsome masculine traits was once again praised, paving the way for the future success of
Swordsman II .
Dongfang Bubai was quite a marginal character in the novel, but Tsui Hark was clever in using the leader of the Sun Moon Holy Cult who had castrated himself to become a formidable martial artist. Thus, Tsui added him into the script and invented a scene where he flirts with Linghu Chong. Here the most successful strategy was undoubtedly choosing Brigitte Lin for the role of Dongfang Bubai. All of a sudden, the homophobic complex and the unpleasant description of the original work are transformed into the ambiguous yin/yang beauty of Brigitte Lin1. We should remember that in the 1984 TVB broadcasted a Swordsman version, where Dongfang Bubai is played by Jiang Yi. At the end of the film, before falling from the edge of the cliff, the swordsman does not answer to Linghu Chong’s insistent request: “Were you or was it Shishi that night?”, leaving him eternally in doubt of having had sex with a man. This beautiful image was born out of Tsui Hark’s photography, which at that time reached levels of unsurpassed mastery .
Tsui Hark may not have innovated gender awareness, using Dongfang Bubai only as a pure element of entertainment2. Nevertheless,
Swordsman II expands the imaginative aspect of gender eroticism. In the second half of the 90s, Hong Kong witnessed the emergence of a trend in gay films, including
Boys (1996),
A Queer Story (1997) and
Happy Together (1997),
Hold You Tight (1998) etc. The public gradually accepted a topic that previously was considered taboo. The image of Dongfang Bubai delivered by Brigitte Lin is a milestone: it was born from the audacious creativity of Tsui Hark as a filmmaker, but on the other hand, it reflects the broader gender awareness that characterized that era .
The drug dealer: subversion of HK-made gangster movies
In the 90s, Wong Kar-wai’s films presented more or less marked variations on mainstream cinema genres of that time, including crime in
Chungking Express, murder in
Fallen Angels (1995), martial arts in
Ashes of Time (1994) etc. Establishing a sort of dialogue with Hong Kong gangster movies, in
Chungking Express Brigitte Lin’s gender image is very important: in fact, it shows how Wong Kar-wai subverts the gender order in the world of organized crime .
In mainstream gangster films, women are often a hindrance, waiting for their savior during men fighting scenes, or being hurt, or killed. In
The Killer (1989), the singer Jennie loses her sight in a gunfight, or another singer, Sally, in
Bullet in the Head (1990) is kidnapped and forced into prostitution .
Dance halls in bars, a men-dominated space in gangster movies, are a living hell for women and very few films are an exception, like
A Better Tomorrow III (1989), where the gunrunner Anita Mui leads Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Kafai around chaotic Saigon, impersonating a strong woman, a fighter gifted with humanity and intuition. Then we have Brigitte Lin playing the drug dealer in Chungking Express .
Female pushers are very rare in Hong Kong films. In
Chungking Express, the protagonist has been framed and has very little time to track down a group of Indian smugglers .
She runs alone, without partners, and does not obey anyone. In the world of drug dealing, controlled by organized crime, the corrupt alleys of the city and the dark corners of Chungking Mansions should be a man-reserved space, but the protagonist moves freely in the metropolitan labyrinth, solving her problems independently, and finally killing the man who framed her .
After
Chungking Express, the killer’s agent played by Michelle Reis in
Fallen Angels continues with this gender representation .
In both cases, Wong Kar-wai unintentionally emphasizes the two women’s familiarity with criminal spaces: the drug dealer knows Chungking Mansions very well and the agent inspects the scene before the crime is committed, drawing a map that she will deliver to the murderer. They are not victims of this criminal space: actually, they manipulate it perfectly .
In
Chungking Express, a detective film, drug dealers are the only ones to shoot .
Guns in films were traditionally considered a phallic symbol of male power, so a female shooting a gun (and not being punished for this) is tantamount to a conquest of power. This role was considered similar to the image of the bold woman played by Gena Rowlands in Gloria (1980). This independent figure stands out from the two fragile police officers tormented by love, 223 and 663, interpreted by Kaneshiro Takeshi and Tony Leung Chiu-wai .
In an era of gangster movies where women were relegated to marginal roles and were the men’s sexual objects, Wong Kar-wai deliberately deletes Brigitte Lin’s beauty: a raincoat covers her body, her sunglasses and extravagant wig hide her beauty. For many years, Brigitte Lin had been symbolized by her fashionable attire or traditional costumes, both in feminine and masculine roles. This time her brilliance disappears .
A drug dealer dressed like this, even when at some point she meets the handsome agent Kaneshiro Takeshi, will end up establishing an anomalous relationship with the man .
Kaneshiro Takeshi approaches her at the bar, she says she’s exhausted and needs a place to rest, so they take a hotel room .
Yet the two loners share the room without nothing else happening: she falls asleep right away, while he watches TV eating some food. The agent never knows he is lying beside a drug dealer, he is not her chaser, her helper or her lover: he meets her and spends a sexless night. This rebel, alternative narrative is clearly singing a different tune in the gangster movie world .
Whether we look at the spatial configuration, gender image, agent-criminal relationship or plot development,
Chungking Express is a question mark, a joke thrown to the detective genre, and Brigitte Lin’s unconventional image is one of its key elements. Brigitte Lin had played many wuxia films and was no longer the graceful performer of the early days, but it was Wong Kar-wai who brought this attitude into contemporary Hong Kong. It’s a role without inner feelings, and Brigitte Lin’s performance was not much discussed, but indeed she played the role of a solitary criminal perfectly .
Murong Yin and Murong Yang: a mobile identity
In
Ashes of Time, Wong Kar-wai’s intention to subvert the genre of wuxia novels is even more apparent. Just like in the world of gangsters, where alleys and dance halls are spaces dominated by men, even in martial arts, even if there are occasionally female warriors, the heroes who travel the world, fighting and killing, are a predominantly male category .
However, Wong Kar-wai has feminized this reality: his film has completely replaced the duels in Jianghu with emotional distress: almost every character is trapped in their feelings, perpetually sad and unable to set themselves free himself .
Murong Yin, played by Brigitte Lin, is a proof of the physical mobility and erotic lust of the female world .
Murong Yin is a princess from the reign of Yan who wears male clothes to wander freely in the outside world. One day she meets the romantic Huang Yaoshi, with whom she falls in love instantly, and she offers him to meet her younger sister (that is, herself), organizing a rendezvous with him. However, he does not show up and the huge disappointment sends her into schizophrenia, turning her into her masculine counterpart, Murong Yang, who ends up killing Huang Yaoshi. This character is obviously inspired by
Swordsman II, and Brigitte’s performance resembles some of her previous costume films (for example, when she laughs, raising her head to the sky), but in
Ashes of Time, she plays this suffering schizophrenic with a slightly neurotic air, without ever going too far: it is virtually the most interesting role in the film .
With Murong Yin, Wong Kar-wai wrote one of the few erotic female pages in the wuxia world. One night, Ouyang Feng, in his sleep, hears someone touching him: it is Murong Yin, who mistakes him for Huang Yaoshi, and Ouyang Feng does not stop her, believing that she is the girl he is in love with. Heroines with carnal desires who take the initiative, this is a description of female eroticism that is rarely found in the wuxia literary genre. What the scene shows us is the body of Ouyang Feng and the hand of Murong Yin: with no female body shown, this is an erotic scene not relying on nudity. The part where Peach Blossom strokes her horse while waiting for her husband is also full of sexual references .
Besides eroticism, the film also uses special effects to emphasize the wonder of Brigitte’s
wushu: for example, when she practices on the lakeshore, with the sword sending huge walls of water skywards with a deafening roar, and the narrating voice of Ouyang Feng telling us that she would become Dugu Qiubai. In comparison, the other swordsmen in the film do not receive this special treatment, and their power disappears in front of her .
The film explores women’s possibilities in the martial arts world, including changes in appearance, variation in gender traits, martial arts feats, erotic thrusts and spatial experiences. The princess of Yan, walking alone in the desert, is the only character to cross borders and probably the one who goes farther. When the objectives of the main male roles in the film are clearly revealed (Ouyang Feng returns to the mountains of the White Camel, Huang Yaoshi settles on Peach Blossom island, Hong Qi goes north), this mysterious woman is still on the way to the unknown. Murong Yin has no home, no husband or children, no country and no one to serve. This female character is thus a betrayal of feudal society that limited women’s freedom, and a departure from men-dominated nationalism .
Although martial arts are a typically masculine environment, the tradition of female swordsmen has always existed in China. In classical literature, heroines originate from the legends of the Tang dynasty. This tradition continues up to Ming and Qing novels, then reinvented by generations of wuxia films in the last 100 years, see for example Yu So-Chow, Cheng Pei-pei, Hsu Feng, Brigitte Lin and Michelle Yeoh. Some scholars have also pointed out that Chinese heroines belong to the collective cultural consciousness more deeply than western female warriors (like Joan of Arc). However, the rich literature on Chinese heroines is in contrast with the old sexist society, where women could not leave their homes, and in many cases they had to bond their feet. In other words, while freedom of movement in everyday life was cruelly taken away from them, in novels we see women walking through rivers and lakes with extraordinary abilities. Literature, which has always brought imagination into life, is also a criticism of reality .
Murong Yin, lost in her love afflictions, is a character who does not seem to be burdened with any great moral or mission, a solitary heroine with exceptional abilities (thus similar to the drug dealer in
Chungking Express), and yet carries with her a female story. Brigitte Lin, masterfully reciting the Wulin warrior with a mixture of power and sweetness, gave us a very modern gender imagination. It is a wonderful reinterpretation of Hong Kong’s pop culture, reinventing the traditional Chinese swordsman, but also an anti-conformist image concealing traditional cultural traits. In classic Chinese novels of talent and beauty, there is no shortage of young girls dressed as men, as well as scholars with feminine elegance. This kind of ambiguous interchange between yin and yang attributes is certainly one of our culture’s elements. Brigitte Lin’s gender image is on the one hand the creation of Hong Kong filmmakers in the 80s and 90s, on the other hand, a re-echoing of Chinese classicism .
With Murong Yin, Wong Kar-wai also built a post-colonial cultural identity in Hong Kong. In the 70s, Bruce Lee, who enjoyed beating up the Japanese, represented the Chinese nation. In the 80s, the nasty kungfu kid Jackie Chan was considered an expression of Hong Kong’s identity. In the 90s, the complex nature of the city was represented by more ambiguous gender roles, such as gay lovers in
Happy Together who before 1997 leaver their traditional families, betray the heterosexual system and are exiled from their country. This state of marginality, of drifting, revolved around the construction of the identity and condition of Hong Kong at that time .
It is true that national identity is often built through gender roles: the wise warlord, the brave fighter and the hero who uses martial arts to get rid of foreign enemies (see
Ip Man [2008]) are always the best representatives of the nation. Let’s try to count how many men are there in
The Founding of a Republic (2009) and Beginning of the
Great Revival (2011)? How many women? In this predominantly male nationalism, vague gender roles have helped create a local identity for Hong Kong, resisting the powerful monotone national rhetoric .
Regardless of gender traits, national belonging and social characteristics, Murong Yin is a very difficult character to define, a reference to the multiplicity and ambiguity that characterize this city .
Brigitte Lin’s cultural traces
Brigitte Lin shone on the big screen for twenty years. On the one hand, her classic beauty, delicate facial features and unique gender characteristics have led her to become a successor of the cultural tradition, on the other, she was transformed by the directors of Hong Kong, reconnecting to modern gender issues and even participating in the construction of cultural identity .
Nonetheless, after the mid-90s, this type of experimentation became history with the development of Hong Kong cinema .
In the mainland market, where box office films sales are calculated in hundreds of millions, the film industry is flourishing, but its ideology is conservative and it is difficult to find gender roles like Dongfang Bubai, the drug dealer and Murong Yin by Brigitte Lin. Sexual gender is not an independent entity, but is born out of society, culture and politics. And a diva is never just a diva, because a popular artist is often connected to a specific social psychology and a cultural background.
Brigitte Lin’s gender image in Wong Karwai’s films deserves in-depth study as it reflects Hong Kong’s unique cultural structure at the time .
Translated from original Chinese article in Brigitte Lin, Filmmaker in Focus courtesy of Hong Kong International Film Festival Society .
Translated from Chinese by Francesco Nati