The film was the last collaboration between Zhang Yimou and actress Gong Li in the 1990s, thus ending a successful partnership that had begun with Zhang's debut, Red Sorghum, and had evolved into a romantic relationship as well. With the wrapping of filming for Shanghai Triad the two agreed to end their relationship both professionally and personally.[2] Gong Li and Zhang Yimou would not work together again until 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower.
Plot
Tang Shuisheng has arrived in Shanghai to work for a Triad Boss, also named Tang. He is taken to a warehouse where two rival groups of Triads carry out an opium deal that goes wrong, leaving one of the rival members dead. Shuisheng is then taken by his uncle to Tang's palatial home, where he is assigned to serve Xiao Jinbao, a cabaret singer and mistress of the Boss. It is soon learned that Jinbao is also carrying on an affair with the Boss's number two man, Song.
On the third night, Shuisheng witnesses a bloody gang fight between the Boss and a rival, Fat Yu, in which his uncle is killed. The Boss and a small entourage retreat to an island. There, Jinbao befriends Cuihua, a peasant woman with a young daughter, Ajiao. When Jinbao unwittingly meddles in Cuihua's business, it results in the Boss's men killing Cuihua's lover. Furious, Jinbao confronts the Boss and tells Shuisheng to leave Shanghai.
By the seventh day, Song arrives to the island along with Zheng, the Boss's number three man. Shuisheng, while evacuating his bowels in the reeds, overhears hiding men plotting, amongst other things, to kill Jinbao. He rushes back and tells Boss what he heard. During a mahjong game, the Boss and Jinbao calmly confront Song with evidence of his treachery. The gang kills Song's men and buries Song alive. The Boss then informs Jinbao that she will have to die as well for her role in Song's betrayal. Jinbao is calm until she learns that Cuihua is to be killed too, prompting her to futilely attack the Boss. As Shuisheng attempts to save her from her fate, he is thrown back and beaten. The film ends with Shuisheng tied to the sails of the ship as it sails back to Shanghai. The Boss takes Ajiao with him, telling her that Shuisheng needs to learn how to be loyal to the proper people, and how in a few years, Ajiao herself will become another Jinbao.
Cast
Wang Xiaoxiao as Tang Shuisheng, the young teenage boy who serves as the film's protagonist and he falls under the spell of the boss's mistress, Jinbao.
Gong Li as Xiao Jinbao, a Shanghai nightclub singer, Jinbao is the mistress of the Triad Boss.
Li Xuejian as Uncle Liu, a servant to a Triad organization and Tang Shuisheng's uncle.
Li Baotian as Tang the Triad Boss who hides a ruthless side.
Sun Chun as Song, the Boss's number two man, Song's affair with Jinbao sets up the film's main conflict.
Yang Qianguan as Ajiao, a young girl living on the secluded island with her mother.
Jiang Baoying as Cuihao, Ajiao's mother, a peasant woman who prepares meals for the Boss while he is hiding on his island estate.
Production
Shanghai Triad was director Zhang Yimou's seventh feature film. Zhang's previous film, To Live had landed the director in trouble with Chinese authorities, and he was temporarily banned from making any films funded from overseas sources.[1]Shanghai Triad was therefore only allowed to continue production after it was officially categorized as local production. The director has since noted that his selection of Shanghai Triad to follow up the politically controversial To Live was no accident, as he hoped that a "gangster movie" would be a conventional film.[3]
The film was originally intended to be a straight adaptation of the novel Gang Law by author Li Xiao. This plan eventually changed with Gong Li's character becoming more important and the story's viewpoint shifting to that of the young boy, Tang Shuisheng. As a result, the film's title was changed to reflect its new "younger" perspective.[1]
Reception
Though perhaps less well known than some of Zhang Yimou's more celebrated films (notably Ju Dou, To Live and Raise the Red Lantern), Shanghai Triad has an approval rating of 90% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 31 reviews, and an average rating of 7/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Well-acted and beautifully filmed, Shanghai Triad deftly depicts a young man's coming of age against the backdrop of mob violence and its punishing legacy".[4]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 77 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating generally favourable reviews.[5]
With its headline position in the New York Film Festival, The New York Times' critic Janet Maslin opened her review that despite the clichéd genre of the "gangster film," Shanghai Triad nevertheless "movingly affirms the magnitude of [Zhang Yimou's] storytelling power."[3]Derek Elley of the entertainment magazine Variety similarly found the film to be an achievement, particularly in how it played with genre conventions, calling the film a "stylized but gripping portrait of mob power play and lifestyles in 1930 Shanghai."[1]Roger Ebert, however, provided a counterpoint to the film's praise, arguing that the choice of the boy as the film's main protagonist ultimately hurt the film, and that Shanghai Triad was probably "the last, and ... certainly the least, of the collaborations between the Chinese director Zhang Yimou and the gifted actress Gong Li" (though Gong would again work with Zhang in 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower).[2] Even Ebert however, conceded that the film's technical credits were well done, calling Zhang one of the "best visual stylists of current cinema."[2]
Shanghai Triad was released on December 12, 2000 in the United States on region 1 DVD by Sony Pictures' Columbia TriStar label.[7] The DVD edition includes English and Spanish subtitles. The DVD is in the widescreen letterbox format with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Blu-ray with 108 minute runtime was released on Aug 4, 2020.[8]
