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Pavilion of Women

By Justin Lowe

Producer and actor Luo Yan as the Wu family matriarch Madame Wu.

Nobel-prize winner Pearl S. Buck’s novels about China, and particularly the experiences of Chinese women, have become a worldwide phenomenon, making her at one point the most-translated American author of the 20th Century. The Good Earth, published in 1931, received the Pulitzer Prize and was later made into an Oscar-winning Hollywood film. For decades, however, her novels were suppressed in China. It wasn’t until the Chinese government allowed the publication of Buck’s books in 1994 that actor, scriptwriter and producer Luo Yan considered adapting Pavilion of Women for the screen.

“I immediately fell in love with Pavilion of Women because I grew up in Shanghai with my grandparents, who were similar to the novel’s Wu family,” Luo says.

After a stint with the Shanghai People’s Theater, Luo went on to movie roles, playing lead and supporting actress parts in award-winning films that included Girl Students’ Dormitory, The Girl in Red and Extraordinary Years. In 1986, she left China to pursue an MFA acting degree in the U.S., eventually settling in L.A., where she established a film production company.

In the mid-90s, Luo obtained the rights to Pavilion of Women, cast herself in the lead role of Madame Wu, and co-wrote the screenplay with attorney Paul Collins. Adapting the novel proved a challenge for Collins and novice screenwriter Luo, and it appears that the film first went astray at the script stage, although it begins promisingly enough.

Through her connections in China, Luo was able to secure permission to film at some stunning locations, including historic homes and gardens in the city of Suzhou, outside Shanghai. Hong Kong director Yim Ho opens the film with a long tracking shot through the entryway and courtyard of a gorgeously preserved residence, as the camera glides weightlessly into the interior of the building.

Willem Dafoe as Father Andre.

However, the period atmosphere created by the impressively realistic production design, and other careful attempts to establish the 1938 setting, is disrupted as soon as the dialog begins — in English. The wealthy Wu family is preparing to celebrate the fortieth birthday of Madame Wu (Luo) when she is called to the bedside of her close friend Madame Kang (Amy Hill), who is on the verge of dying in childbirth. In spite of their collective midwifery experience, an assembly of distressed women seems at a loss until Father Andre (Willem Dafoe), an American missionary doctor, barges into the sacred domain of the birthing chamber to save Madame Kang. Wu has little time to contemplate her surprise and admiration for the handsome, unconventional cleric’s behavior as she rushes home to attend to her birthday guests.

At her banquet, she sets in motion a long-cherished plan to free herself from the odious Mr. Wu’s (Shek Sau) amorous demands by purchasing a young concubine who can better fulfill his rather specific predilections. The guests are scandalized, not so much by the idea of concubinage as by Madame Wu’s advocacy of the practice. Wu’s eighteen-year-old son Feng-mo (John Cho), secretly a Communist sympathizer, is particularly disgusted with his mother’s support of this feudal tradition.

Feng-mo has other problems, though, with a stubborn, petulant father determined to marry him off in a loveless union with a prestigious local family. But first, Feng-mo’s future in-laws think he should receive some Western education, and Father Andre, who runs a Christian orphanage, is tapped for the teaching role, arriving at the Wu compound in time to witness Mr. Wu’s marriage to his new concubine and second wife Chiu-ming (Yi Ding), an orphaned country girl exploited by a greedy foster mother and a conniving matchmaker.

Chiu-ming is quickly absorbed into the household, and before long, Madame Wu has manipulated her husband into approving the women’s participation in Feng-mo’s lessons with Father Andre, now familiarly and conveniently called simply “Andre.” A growing affection develops between Madame Wu and Andre, based at first on cultural curiosity and a love of learning. Meanwhile, all but Feng-mo appear unconcerned by developments in the outside world, as Japan invades Manchuria and the strife between Nationalists and Communists intensifies.

The depth of Madame Wu’s devotion to Andre is revealed when she rescues him from a burning building after the orphanage catches fire — a scene dramatically rendered in slow motion to the strains of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly.” Andre and the orphans are relocated to the Wu family compound, and local gossip about the pair intensifies. Meanwhile, Madame Wu’s failure to adequately school her new “younger sister” prove catastrophic, when Chiu-ming is unable to satisfy Mr. Wu, and he sets out on an extended tour of the local “flower houses.” The family situation irrevocably unravels when Madame Wu discovers the illicit romance between her son and Chiu-ming, and is forced to acknowledge her love for Andre.

Luo’s adaptation of Pavilion of Women incurs a significant liability by mimicking the standard post-War Hollywood romance formula too accurately. Her decision not to shoot in Chinese, in a misguided attempt to access a mainstream American audience, creates a major distraction.

The script emphasizes melodrama over credible plot development, resulting in characters who are more caricatures than fully realized people. While Yim Ho’s direction is competent enough, it’s occasionally plagued by distracting and ineffective sequences favoring slow-motion and montage techniques.

As Madame Wu, Luo’s performance appears stiff and cerebral as she unconvincingly succumbs to a “forbidden love” for Andre. Rather than viewing Wu as a liberated woman of her time, some audiences are likely to bristle at the suggestion that Chinese women need Western men to achieve their potential. Dafoe’s Father Andre is the most unconflicted cleric imaginable, never hesitating to question his faith or the propriety of his actions as he falls in love with Madame Wu. In her first adult role, Yi Ding apparently received little preparation for the pivotal part of Chiu-ming and her few lines leave her little room to maneuver.

Pavilion of Women is a sentimental star vehicle that may satisfy some interest for pre-War period detail, but falls short of adequately evoking the historical conflicts or personal tragedies of a fascinating and controversial era in the development of modern China.