Douzi's elegant and ultra-feminine portrayal of Concubine Yu wins him many admirers, including Master Yuan, an opera expert and wealthy patron of the arts. When his troops fled, the King of Chu was left with only his horse and his concubine. His horse remained steadfast at his side, while his concubine poured a final glass of wine for her king and then commited suicide with his sword.Īs adults, Douzi and Shitou achieve operatic renown rivaling that of rock stars, with their most popular performance being Farewell My Concubine. The King of Chu was an invincible hero who was outwitted at Gaixia when the war song of the Han army echoed out from a great distance over the battle grounds, causing the King of Chu to think that his lands had already been conquered.
Between daily beatings and berating by the headmaster, the boys are training to perform Farewell My Concubine, with Shitou playing the King of Chu, and Douzi as The Concubine Yu.Īs the legend goes, The kings of the Chu and Han provinces were at war. There he meets Shitou, an older boy who takes him under his wing. When asked by the theater manager "Is this due to the Gang of Four and the Cultural Revolution?" Shitou replies, "Isn't everything?"īorn the son of a prostitute, and cursed with an extra finger on his left hand, Douzi is apprenticed to the opera school at age eleven by his mother. The film opens on a reunion performance of the Chinese opera, Farewell My Concubine, It has been twenty-two years since the two have performed together, and eleven years since they've seen each other.
The turmoil of Cultural Revolution is mirrored in the lives of Douzi and Shitou, two Chinese opera stars who meet as boys in a Beijing opera school run by a cruel and tyrannical headmaster.
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