On the Waterfront Synopsis

Produced by United Film Corporation, Taiwan

Directed by: Zhang Meijun Written by: Qiong Yao Cinematography by: Chen Rongshu Main Cast: Lin Fengjiao (DU XiaoShuang), Qin Han (JU Shiyao), Tennyu (JU Shihui), Ku Minglun (LU Youwen)

Synopsis

The Zhu family, with three generations of grandparents and grandchildren living under the same roof, is a warm and happy family. Shi Huo is an innocent and lively girl, and her grandmother dotes on her. On the other hand, her brother, Shi Yao, who works in a TV company, is very depressed because he is a cripple and has a heavy sense of inferiority.

That evening, the family sat around the living room as usual, watching TV and chatting. Shi Huo looks very impatient and fidgety, and when her grandmother reveals that it's because she didn't receive a letter from her boyfriend Yu Nong, who is serving in the army, Shi Huo blushes and argues strongly. The silent Shi Yao pulls a letter out of her pocket and says she saw it in the mailbox this morning. Shi Huo snatches it up and complains loudly that her brother didn't give the letter to her earlier, when a voice comes from outside the front door, and it turns out to be their father, Zhu Zigong, returning from Kaohsiung.

Zhu Zigong dragged a thin and pretty girl dressed in black into the living room, and the whole family was surprised. Zhu Zigong solemnly announced: "Our family has a new little sister, her name is - Du Xiaoshuang. In the future, she will always be a part of our family." It turned out that Du Xiaoshuang was the only daughter of Zhu Zigong's old friend, who grew up without a mother, and this time her father died, so she became an orphan. After listening to the original story, everyone gathered up and asked for warmth, only Shi Yao quietly back away.

Xiao Shuang was arranged to live with Shi Huo in the same room. In the middle of the night, Shi Huo was awakened by a soft sobbing sound, it turned out to be a small double in the choking, Shi Huo busy drilled into the small double quilt, embraced her tightly in front of the chest, the small double hugged her tightly, and cried out in pain: "Why are you so good to me?" The two girls of similar age hugged each other tightly and became good friends.

Shi Huo woke up and realized that Xiaoshuang had already gotten up. She heard a piano sound coming from the living room, and went to the living room to see that Xiaoshuang was playing the piano, while Shi Yao was listening in silence. After Xiao Shuang finishes playing, Shi Yao is suddenly furious. He thinks that Xiao Shuang is playing the wrong notes on purpose to test his knowledge of music as a cripple. Since then, Xiaoshuang and Shiyao have a very deep grudge against each other, and they hardly ever talk to each other.

However, a chance incident has improved their relationship. During a routine TV chat one night, they talked about the current crude TV dramas, and then about the illiterate pop lyrics. Xiaoshuang mentions that her father composed a song during his lifetime, changing a poem from the Book of Poetry into vernacular lyrics called "On the Water's Edge". Shiyao asks Xiaoshuang to sing it to them while playing the zither. Xiao Shuang played the zither and sang, and the elegant and moving song made Shiyao drunk.

Shi Yao's boyfriend Yu Nong came back and he and Shi Yao were chatting in the house. It was late at night when they suddenly remembered that Xiaoshuang had stayed in the living room to take care of them. When Shi Huo and Yu Nong went to the living room to invite Xiao Shuang, they didn't realize that Shi Yao and Xiao Shuang were deep in conversation. It turns out that Shi Yao has memorized all of Xiaoshuang's song "On the Waterfront", which touches Xiaoshuang very much. Shi Huo ventured into the living room and startled Shi Yao and Xiaoshuang, and Shi Huo was very annoyed.

One day, Yu Nong brings Lu Youwen, the classmate he always mentioned to Shi Huo in his letters. Lu Youwen is dashing, upright and talented, and aspires to be a writer. His talent wins the admiration of Zhu's family, and even more so of Xiaoshuang's, and the two of them soon fall in love. Zhu Shiyao has become even more gloomy.

Xiaoshuang often stayed late at Lu Youwen's rented cottage, and the family could not see her. Zhu Shiyao produced a music program to put Xiaoshuang's "On the Waterfront" on TV, but Xiaoshuang never saw it. It wasn't until a few months later that Xiaoshuang accidentally saw it. Shiyao hands Xiao Shuang a check for the company's purchase of the copyright of Xiao Shuang's song. Xiaoshuang doesn't believe that Shiyao can be so good to her, but a drunken Shiyao pours out his emotions without thinking, much to Xiaoshuang's horror.

One day, Xiaoshuang suddenly brought Lu Youwen home and solemnly announced to everyone that she had married Youwen, and she emotionally thanked the Zhu family for taking care of her. Everyone sincerely blessed them both. Grandma unwrapped a gold chain from her neck and pulled a jade pendant from her bosom and gave it to Xiaoshuang as a gift.

However, after the marriage, Xiaoshuang's life was very difficult. Lu Youwen aspired to write a novel that would win the Nobel Prize, but he almost never even wrote one. Zhu Shiyao bought a piano and gave it to Xiaoshuang in the name of a company lottery. Xiaoshuang relies on it to take in a few students to make ends meet. Xiaoshuang is pregnant, but Lu Youwen still can't write a piece, and he accuses Xiaoshuang's piano of disrupting his writing and rudely chases away the children who are learning to play the piano.

Xiaoshuang composes a few songs, and Shiyao helps her sell them to a record label. However, Lu Youwen took the reward and gambled with it, which later developed into selling the piano as gambling capital, which made Xiaoshuang very sad. One day, Shi Huo receives a phone call from home at the bank where she works, saying that something has happened to Xiaoshuang and that she should rush to the hospital immediately. Shi Huo rushes to the hospital and finds the whole family waiting anxiously outside the operating room. It turns out that Lu Youwen snatched the jade pendant that Xiaoshuang regarded as an amulet, and Xiaoshuang was injured when he pushed her down during an argument with him. Xiaoshuang gave birth to a girl prematurely. At this point, she was so disheartened that she resolved to divorce Lu Youwen.

Lu Youwen was pulled back from the casino by Yu Nong. He knelt down in front of Xiaoshuang and begged her not to get a divorce. Seeing that Xiaoshuang had already made up her mind, he flipped out and accused Xiaoshuang of wanting a divorce for the sake of Shiyao, a cripple. Shiyao taught Lu Youwen a hard lesson, and Xiaoshuang said to Lu Youwen: a cripple is not a cripple, but a dirty-minded and irresponsible person like him is a real cripple!

Xiaoshuang and Lu Youwen finally got divorced. But she and Youwen agreed that if one day he came to her with his first full-length novel, she would break the ice with him, regardless of whether it would be published or not, and whether it would become famous.

Lu Youwen in the divorce certificate simply signed, because he believes that one day will still be small double mother and daughter back to fight. However, six years have passed, but Lu Youwen is nowhere to be found, and Xiaoshuang is waiting in vain. Shi Yao finally retrieved the jade pendant for Xiaoshuang. Xiaoshuang appreciated all that Shi Yao did for her, but still insisted on waiting for Lu Youwen.

One day, Xiaoshuang suddenly hears the news that Lu Youwen is seriously ill in Kaohsiung, and she immediately rushes to Kaohsiung. Xiaoshuang picked up the seriously ill Youwen. On his deathbed, Youwen finally finished his first full-length novel, Ordinary Stories.

Youwen Lu passed away. Xiaoshuang bought a villa in Linshuixi and lived there with her daughter Binbin. Zhu Shiyao and others often visit Xiaoshuang. The first time I saw this, I was in the middle of a long journey, and I was in the middle of a long journey. He waited stubbornly and confidently.

Testimonials

Taiwan's movie industry took off in the mid-1960s, and by the 1970s it had reached an astonishingly high level, with its output leaping to the third place in the world. In just three years, from 1972 to 1974, production reached a whopping 609 films. Among these hundreds of films, the most prolific was the "rom-com".

The term "rom-com" refers to movies based on the popular Qiong Yao novels of the time. These novels became popular in Taiwan in the early 1960s. The main author, Qiong Yao, wrote 42 full-length novels from 1963 to 1985. The subjects of these novels were all lyrical stories of pure and true romantic love between a man and a woman. The earliest film adaptation of Qiong Yao's original novels was made by China Film Corporation in 1963 as Cousin Wanjun (婉君表妹). Because Qiong Yao's novel itself is a bestseller, adapted into a movie, sells extremely well, so the various film companies have to buy the copyright of Qiong Yao's novels, shooting Qiong Yao's work for a time to form a wave of craze, and Qiong Yao herself in 1967 since the formation of Firebird, specializing in filming by their own novels adapted from the film.

Joan Yiu's romances were popular in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia for nearly 20 years. In these 20 years, the "romance movie" has created a trend again and again. It has not only created a very high box office value, but also produced many stars who are still popular today, as well as countless avid movie fans. According to statistics, Qiong Yao's novels have been adapted into more than 40 movies, of which 15 have been self-financed.

The movie is a highly commercial synthesis of art, that is, based on the pursuit of box office value, the reason why Qiong Yao novels can be one after another on the screen, and it has countless fans closely related. Why do these kinds of romance movies with the same plot content attract audiences? This is obviously inseparable from the specific political and economic background of Taiwan at that time.

I. "Love" - a "curtain dream" for modern people.

Taiwan transformed from an agricultural society to an industrial one in the early 1960s, when countless farmers were forced to lose their jobs and a large number of rural people were lost to the cities. Taiwanese faced an existential crisis of difficult employment. Of course the most terrifying to the Taiwanese, not only is the threat of survival, but also changes in the living environment: the highway suddenly more strange tall cars, fast standing blocks of skyscrapers, the daily rush to go to work on the clock of the modern fast-paced. With all these changes in lifestyle, with the advent of the era of industrial civilization, the spiritual pillar on which they used to rely for their survival - the traditional value system of culture - has collapsed in a sigh of relief. The most prominent is the traditional Chinese culture of humane and warm relationships all of a sudden for people with each other *** naked competition, nibbling replaced. Therefore, the kind of love theme in Qiong Yao's movie, which celebrates the purest and the best on earth, fits into the general psychology of Taiwanese people. Under the challenges of modern society that Taiwanese people have to cope with, Qiong Yao's movie is obviously a kind of spiritual compensation, a kind of psychological salvation for Taiwanese people's subconscious. You see, in "On the Waterfront", the orphaned girl Du Xiaoshuang is pampered in the cozy family of the Zhu family. And her incomprehensible love for Lu Youwen, as well as Zhu Shiyao's infatuation with her, is so touching and singable!

In short, when Taiwan gradually entered the developed industrial and commercial society, along with the adjusted development of science and technology, the increase of social wealth, and the improvement of living conditions, the original social contradictions have not been eliminated, but also added a series of developed society's symptoms: indifference, numbness, insecurity, anxiety, and so on. The Qiong Yao-style romance movie moisturized their hungry hearts, the love on the screen to provide them with a "curtain dream", giving them temporary comfort.

Second, the ideological function of romance films.

During the economic transformation of Taiwan society, the brutal competition made some people become rich and powerful, and they were able to join the ranks of the rich and powerful. However, most of the common people apparently only dream of getting rich, and remain at the bottom of the ladder, living a precarious life. This uneven distribution of power (money) and the serious polarization of the society lurks all kinds of crises and contradictions.

In this social context, the romance film came into being, tirelessly recounting a Cinderella meets the prince, the poor boy fortunate to meet the rich girl's wonderful myth, the reality of the contradictions and crises have been simplified into a "war between men and women" on the screen, "war! After the "war" subsides, the wedding bells ring, like the magical Arabian myth, wealth accompanied by love rolls in. And the little people at the bottom of the ladder are the ones who get illusory fulfillment and catharsis from the social myths created by the silver screen. Therefore, the romance film actually serves the same cultural function as other types of conventional films in Taiwan in creating various social myths for the mainstream ideology of the existing system and order.

Chinese viewers can easily recognize that these romances are just a modern replica of the classical drama and novels in which "a scholar falls in love at first sight with a young lady, and she is betrothed for life to the back garden". However, there is one important difference between them, that is, the identity of the hero is different, that is, the hero identified by the readers and viewers has been replaced by a businessman from a scholar. In On the Waterfront, the scholar Lu Youwen, who is full of experience and capable of poetry and painting, is portrayed as a loser with no ability to support his family, and his woman Du Xiaoshuang ultimately belongs to Zhu Shiyao, the possessor of power (money). By praising and depreciating the two characters, Qiong Yao is actually reflecting the authoritative discourse of the society at that time: no matter how learned and talented you are, but first you must be a success in this society, and your work must be able to earn money before you can be considered a socially-recognized hero.

Film is essentially an ideological production. The dominant ideology produces the movie, and the movie in turn reproduces the dominant ideology. We can read from the transformation of the protagonist (hero) of a romance movie from a scholar to a half-scholar to a half-businessman and finally to a businessman the history of the political, cultural and ideological development and change of Taiwanese society from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is also possible to read the process of establishing a new discourse of social authority and dominant ideology in Taiwan's transition to an industrial and commercial society. Although there are many reasons for the end of the Qiong Yao-style romance in the early 1980s, it can be said to be important because in the 1980s Taiwan society had already completed its social transformation, that is, it had already embarked on the normal operation of an industrial and commercial society, and the social authority discourse of money as the dominant power had already been established, so that the new system and order needed a new social myth to be maintained and consolidated. And as the spokesman for the emerging petty bourgeoisie, the Qiong Yao romance film, then completed its historical mission.

Third, "I love the night" - a spectacle on the screen.

Anyone who has seen a romance movie will find that the way it is presented is in a very glamorous package, with the most fixed narrative pattern of beautiful stars, beautiful natural landscapes, and beautiful "three halls" (ballroom, living room, and coffee shop). These constitute the "spectacle" of the romance film to the audience to bring a strong visual ***, thus deepening the dream effect of such films.

(1) star system. Romance films have created a large number of stars who are still popular, and the audience is fascinated by the image they represent. In this case, the "image" we are talking about is not exactly the same as the image in the material sense, but has a symbolic meaning, is a cultural symbol. Such as the most popular Lin Qingxia, represents the perfect image of women in the Oriental culture: pure love, beautiful, delicate, melancholy; Qin Han has a suave, gentle male image; Ke Junxiong on behalf of the strong male full image; Lin Fengjiao symbolizes the virtuous and gentle image of Oriental female virtues, and so on. Their images symbolize the linguistic order and values of the patriarchal society. Female viewers have also become admirers and obsessed with these stars because the cultural upbringing they received from childhood has been assimilated by the patriarchal society.

(2) Beauty, "three halls". The most important feature of entering industrial civilization is that everything can be consumed as a commodity, even the air is not spared. Marx said capitalism ruthlessly destroys all that is sacred and callously turns everything into matter and commodities. Romance films omit the reality of slums, gray office buildings, monotonous and busy work, etc., and present to the audience opulent living rooms, neon lights flashing, cafes and dance halls accompanied by gorgeous girls, natural landscapes full of sunshine and flowers, charming exotic scenery, all of which not only give the audience's vision a strong sense of feeling, but also satisfy their subconscious desires to be with the stars of the movie in their dreams and dreams. Dreams and movie stars as romantic and enjoyable to enjoy, consume all this, temporarily forget the reality of the troubles and hardships.

Fourth, the pattern of the male world - the interpretation of the female image of the romance movie.

On the surface, Qiong Yao-style romance movies are very simple, telling a thousand love stories of a group of young boys and girls who do not eat fire. However, all narratives are cultural. The women in the rom-com who are "so soft, so weak, so helpless" are the standard image of women who are dependent on men in a patriarchal society.

In classic Hollywood movies, women are often the vehicles of men's desire, the tools of sex. But it is not easy for the average person to see this, because this desire is often skillfully disguised and cloaked in an ethical veil (especially in China), which means that the woman is allowed to be possessed in a traditionally moral way. This is especially true of Qiong Yao-style romance movies.

The images in Qiong Yao's romances are very "clean", and the "sexiness" of the scenes is often intentionally minimized, which is very much in line with the traditional morality of the Chinese audience. When a beautiful woman with a pretty face appears on the screen as an object to be watched, the audience wants to possess her as much as the male protagonist. Thus, she is portrayed as a meek and delicate virtuous figure, which makes the subconscious desires of the hero and the audience seem reasonable. Du Xiaoshuang in On the Waterfront, whose appearance is always accompanied by beautiful music, is charming and picturesque, making the audience as drunkenly infatuated with her as the male protagonist in the movie.

Love stories in romance films come in all colors, but their connotations are the same: a woman who is faithful, virtuous, and patient will always get the man she wants to belong to in the end, despite all the torture she suffers. Du Xiaoshuang was tortured by her husband, but repeatedly tolerated, to the final divorce, but also obsessively expressed willingness to wait for her husband for 20 years.

It is worth mentioning that one of the lovers has a serious illness or disability, a very common theme in romance movies, which seems to better reflect the greatness and purity of love. But we can also find the fact that the male lead can have physical defects, such as missing arms and legs, blindness, etc. (Zhu Shiyao in "On the Waterfront" is a cripple), while the female lead can have other diseases or even incurable diseases (to show that she is weak and needs to be loved and cared for), but can never have a defective face. This reinforces the fact that in Joan of Arc romance, the woman, as the object to be looked at, must satisfy the subconscious psyche of the subject (male). At the same time in the imaginary world, any viewer would not want to possess an object with imperfect appearance.