Yang Ban Xi – De 8 modelwerken

One of the ukases at the time of the Cultural Revolution was about traditional Chinese opera. Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing was an untalented actress, but effective as a politician: she was the driving force behind the ‘Yang Ban Xi’, or the revolutionary model operas, filmic propaganda that had to replace the ‘Revisionist’ Chinese opera. The world view of these films shot in Technicolor and Panorama View was simple: happy, healthy field workers andsoldiers versus shady squinting land owners and other anti-revolutionaries. For years, the eight high points in this genre – known as the eight model works – were the only film entertainment for a whole generation. After the fall of the Gang of Four, not only Yang Ban Xi fell into disgrace, but also the actors, singers and dancers who had been incredibly famous for ten years. All that was left for them was an anonymous existence as stagehands. Since recently, the Chinese have been able to appreciate the Yang Ban Xi again. The older generation feel nostalgia, and young viewers regard the films as hip, campy and cheery. Without denying the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution, Yuen, who came from Hong Kong to Amsterdam as a five-year-old girl, looks back at the operas with an amused gaze. The story of the Yang Ban Xi is told with many fine fragments, interviews and contemporary performances. At the same time, Yuen’s film largely offers a demythologising look at modern China and its flourishing cultural life. (GT)