Now considered one of mainland China’s top filmmakers, Shaohong Li served as a military nurse during the Cultural Revolution before attending the Beijing film academy when it reopened in 1978. She’s counted among the directors of the post-Mao ‘Fifth Generation Movement,’ who were encouraged to experiment even if their completed films remained subject to official censure. Li’s 1995 feature Blush chose for its subject the re-education of former prostitutes, focusing on the general state of women in modern China.
Li’s 2005 feature Sheng si jie aka Stolen Life displays a similar commitment to the exploitation of young women in China’s big cities. The harrowing, all-too-true story of the naive Yan’ni (Zhou Xun) is told in the past tense. Lucky to win a place at a university, Yan’ni is accosted and tricked by the charming Muyu (Jun Wu) almost as soon as she moves into her dormitory — how cute it is that they wear the same hat! But Muyu is a professional seducer who impregnates women to sell their babies on the illicit adoption market. Blinded by love, Yan’ni leaves school to live with Muyu in Beijing’s ‘underground city,’ a sort of semi-legal Casbah district.
Sheng si jie has a raw look befitting a tragic social exposé, a warning to foolish innocents of a society in transformation. Using the latest guerrilla filmmaking stylistics, Shaohong Li gives the show a discordant soundtrack, bludgeoning the viewer with the noise of the big city, where a childlike Yan’ni is an easy target. She finds out who she is only after losing everything. Yet Yan’ni’s ordeal does manage a positive finale — just taking control of her life is considered a victory.
The film is an interesting detour for the celebrated actress and singer Zhou Xun, who had already performed for Shaohong Li in 2004’s Lian ai Zhong de Bao Bei aka Baober in Love, a fantasy romance. The superstar has won every Chinese award in a wide variety of film fare and played multiple roles in her Hollywood debut Cloud Atlas (2012). Zhou Xun is also China’s image representative for Chanel.
by Glenn Erickson
