Woman of Wrath
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| Woman of Wrath | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Tseng Chuang Hsiang |
| Produced by | Hsu Feng |
| Screenplay by | Wu Nien-jen |
| Based on | Li Ang |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography |
|
| Edited by | Jiang Huang-xiong |
Production company | Tomson (H. K.) Film Co., Ltd |
| Distributed by | Tomson (H. K.) Film Co., Ltd |
Release date | 1985-09-08 |
Running time | 100 |
| Country | Taiwan |
| Language | Mandarin |
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Woman of Wrath (殺夫) is a Taiwanese movie directed by Tseng Chuang Hsiang, released in 1985. The movie is an adaptation of Li Ang’s (李昂) award-winning namesake novella, which is based on a true story about a tortured wife in the colonial period, who killed her butcher husband.[1]
Plot[edit]
When she was young, Ah-Shih (Lin Shih) witnessed the tragic death of her mother. Her mother let a man take her in exchange for food. When it was exposed and induced severe moral accusations from the villagers, her mother committed suicide, which was witnessed by Ah-shih. Ah-shih was brought up by her uncle, who married her to a butcher, Chen Chiang-shui. Little did he know Ah-shih would from then on live in domestic violence. Chiang-shui was a violent man and treated Ah-shih as his slave for sex. Ah-shih had to endure Chiang-shui’s abuse because it was a patriarchal society and she needed shelter and food provided by him.
The wives in the village loved to gossip. Among them the widow Ah Mang-kuan, who lived with her son and daughter-in-law, was the worst. She pretended to be nice to Ah-shih but in her back she bad-mouthed her a lot and accused her of being shameless, for her screaming when having sex could be heard at night. She told Ah-shih that she should not have sex with Chiang-shui in July, because if impregnated she would conceive a possessed baby. Ah-shih told her that she was always forced to have sex by her husband. She taught her that she could lie to him that she was having her period.
One day, Ah Mang-kuan’s daughter-in-law exposed her affair with the temple host Ah-ji in front of the neighbors, which caused her to commit suicide by hanging herself. Fortunately she was saved by Chiang-shui. That night, when Chiang-shui wanted to have sex with Ah-shih, she followed her advice, but Shui did not believe her. Luckily her period happened to come that night, otherwise she would have been beaten up by him. Frustrated, Chiang-shui went to the brothel house to fulfill his sexual need.
Ah Mang-kuan’s own immoral behavior did not stop her from gossiping about Ah-shih. Ah-shih accidentally heard Ah Mang-kuan and other women in the village gossiping about her, interpreting her screaming of pain caused by her husband’s violence on bed as her shameless expression of sexual pleasure. Her reluctance to have sex with Chiang-shui to him suggested that she looked down upon him because he was a butcher, which made him even more violent with her and wanted to rape her. Ah-shih however was determined not to make any sound this time, which infuriated him and he again beat her up.
Ah-shih tried to raise some ducklings to earn money. Chiang-shui saw them as he saw them as an insult and killed them all in a fit. To punish her for looking down on him he would not let her eat. She had to go out to find a job but no one dared to help her. When Ching Shui learned that she tried to find a job, he was furious and forced her to work at the slaughterhouse, the bloody violence caused her to faint and had to be carried home on a cart as an animal.
One evening Chiang-shui came home drunk and found Ah-shih’s praying to her dead mother’s memorial tablet. He scolded her for trying to curse him and shout at her “Fuck you!” “Fuck your mother!” and beat her up. While Chiang-shui raped her, Ah-shih kept whispering “Don't fuck my mother!” as though in a trance. Afterwards, seeing Chiang-shui sound asleep, Ah-shih took Chiang-shui’s butcher knife, which he left on the bed, and kept stabbing him to death.
Cast[edit]
- Bai Ying as Chen Chiang-shui - A butcher who married Lin Shih for presenting his masculinity by fulfilling his traditional role as a man.
- Patricia Ha as Lin Shih - A young girl who was forced to marry Chiang-shui for a better living but ultimately followed her mother’s tragic life experience.
- Chen Shu-Fang as Ah Mang-kuan - A village woman who pretended to be kind to Lin Shih by helping her to fit in with the community. However, she spread the gossip of Lin Shih to the villagers to cover the stain on her family.
Production[edit]
The film was adapted from Taiwanese writer Li Ang’s novella, “The Butcher’s Wife,” which won the Novella Grand Prize of United Daily News (聯合報中篇小說首獎) in 1983. The novella was published while Taiwan was still in Martial Law. The feminist ideology and explicit depiction of sex made the work very controversial at that time.[1]
In the opening sequence of the film, little Lin Shih witnessed the death of her mother. The ending of the film is echoing the beginning by showing a little girl entering the bloody room where Lin Shih killed Chiang-shui. As suggested by Peggy Chiao, it implies the inextricable future of women's tragedy that is transmitted to the little girls.[2]
After filming An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty, the main protagonist Patricia Ha became famous for her sexy performance in Hong Kong. Producer Hsu Feng believed that she was the most suitable actress for Lin Shih and invited her to act in the film. However, Patricia Ha was an contracted actress of the Shaw Brothers Pictures International Limited (邵氏兄弟國際影業有限公司), which made it difficult for her to join the movie produced and distributed by Tomson (H. K.) Film Co., Ltd (湯臣電影事業有限公司). According to The Kung Sheung Daily News (香港工商日報), it was some Taiwanese reporters, admirers of Ha’s performance, who helped to persuade Shaw Brothers to let Patricia Ha film Woman of Wrath in Taiwan.[3]
The shooting in Taiwan was not easy for Patricia Ha, especially when shooting at Wang An (望安), a small island of the Penghu Islands. The production company had limited resources for the staff, including Patricia Ha. She suffered a lot from the heavy makeup and hot weather in Taiwan.[4] After the film was released in 1985, she became a popular star in Taiwan. Producer Hsu Feng expressed her intention to cast Patricia Ha in a new movie but unfortunately it was not realized.[5]
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 竺, 晶瑩. "香爐花季啃甘蔗，迷園暗夜談殺夫 —李昂談其小說中的性政治". 東吳大學電子報. Retrieved 2023-06-18.
- ↑ 焦, 雄屏 (1988). 台灣新電影 (in 中文). 臺灣: 時報文化. ISBN 9789571301587. Search this book on
- ↑ "邵氏答應放人 夏文汐演殺夫". 香港工商日報. 1984-04-24.
- ↑ "夏文汐赴台拍戲 大嘆吃盡了苦頭". 香港工商日報. 1984-07-28.
- ↑ "徐楓為人作嫁衣 影片旺台亦堪告慰". 香港工商日報. 1984-09-19.
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