Asian Cinema - Volume 8, Issue 1, 1996

My first interview appointment with Lino Brocka was on August 20, 1986. He did not show up. Though disappointed, I proceeded to interview other directors and film personnel I had lined up. Without me asking, they told me about Lino. He was such a presence on the political and arts scenes in 1986, and he had touched their own lives and careers to such a degree, that they could not avoid discussing him.

Dangerous Encounter — 1st Kind (hereafter. Dangerous) opens and closes with the same scene. A group of unidentified children drops a bag of red paint from the top of a decrepit-looking building on an unidentified pedestrian below. The bag hits the ground, missing her. Although her umbrella also saves her from a splattering, she is not consoled: she bellows at the children, cursing them. The paint is only a drop in the blood that splashes everywhere in the film.

For over 17 years, the Southern All Stars has maintained its place as one of the most popular rock bands in the Japanese popular music world, continuously attracting Japanese youth with its unique musical style. The group has released ten albums, seven of which reached the top of the hit charts, and 35 singles which include 25 Top-10 hits. The force behind the Southern All Stars' enormous success is vocalist Keisuke Kuwata, who has written almost all the songs for the group.

Kuwata's songs, characterized by an eclectic musical style and unconventional lyrics, are the products of his exceptional abilities to sense the popular consciousness of late-twentieth-century Japan. This seems the reason for the continuous appeal of his music to Japanese youth. In 1989, Kuwata decided to apply his abilities to filmmaking.

Raise the Red Lantern is about a 19 year old college educated woman, Songlian (Gong Li), who arrives in the home of an old, wealthy landowner to become his fourth wife. The film centers on her experiences in confronting the intrigues of the household--from surviving the treachery of the other three wives, to coping with the harsh realities of being a concubine in a tradition-entrenched patriarchal family. As the story unfolds, Songlian finds herself drawn more and more into the web of deceit spun by wife number two, and Songlian's hand-maid, who, prior to her arrival, was the Master's lover.