Chloe Frantzis

In my critical review of Feng Xiaogang’s 2006 film The Banquet, I do not need to comment on the success of the movie. It is, objectively, a wonderful cinematic experience—wuxia drama at its finest. Instead, I would like to pose a response to previous critiques of the film which tend to center their analysis on a study of the heroine’s relative compatibility to feminist doctrine. It is a tempting route to go down, especially given that the protagonist, Empress Wan Er, is a masterful reworking of Queen Gertrude of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, a character whose own agency has been deeply expounded in contemporary scholarship.

 

Wan Er’s step-son and former love interest, Prince Wu Luan (i.e., Hamlet), begins the film cowering underwater to avoid a troupe of assassins sent by the new Emperor Li to kill him at his dance school in the country. Back at court, Wu Luan never seems to get around to contemplating whether he should ‘be or not be’ angry at the Emperor. Rather, the Prince cedes most of the dramatic heavy lifting to the Empress, as her character carries the bulk of the tension, dynamism, and visual pleasure of the film. 

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Scholar Wai Fong Cheang writes that The Banquet "endow[s]" the Gertrude character with a "feminist awareness," and thus the entire work "can be considered extremely feminist" (Cheang 8). Conversely critic Woodrow B. Hood posits that, instead of the film being a feminist retelling of Hamlet, all the movie presents is "a throw-back medieval view that represents women as either saints or whores" (Hood 2). Hood critiques the film for perpetuating an age-old binary, yet he perhaps falls into a similar predicament, looking to paint the film as either affirming or defying conventional feminine standards.

 

Instead, I look to examine the film as it transfers ambiguity and an ‘antic disposition’ away from the Hamlet-figure of Renaissance drama, placing it instead on Wan Er—the reimagined Gertrude. I suggest that this relocation of ambiguity complicates a the submissive/feminist binary which critics have confined Wan Er to. For me, the Empress ultimately transcends this binary by skillfully embracing and exemplifying the true—and traditionally male—expectations of a tragic hero. 

 

An assumed ‘disposition’: madness or equanimity? 

Though present in a plethora of scenes and symbols, Wan Er’s feigned ‘antic disposition’ and ambiguity are on full display in several key moments of fierce political and romantic tension. First though, it is important to note that Shakespeare’s Hamlet centers its ambiguity in the prince’s supposed madness—they are codependent variables. Thus, in the play, it is not clear how much of an act ‘madness’ is, nor when/if that madness transforms into true insanity: "As I perchance hereafter shall think meet / To put an antic disposition on" Hamlet tells Horatio and the others who see the ghost (Hamlet II. 1. 174-175). King Claudius soon after speaks of "Hamlet’s transformation," noting (rather astutely for a Shakespearean villain) that, "nor th’ exterior not the inward man / Resembles that it was" (Hamlet II. 2. 5-7). This is an interesting observation—that there is something both interior and public-facing in Hamlet’s altered state. The notion implies that Hamlet's antic disposition is not specifically grounded in "madness;" rather, his :transformation" more broadly reflects a disturbing change in countenance, unnamable and indescribable.

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With this in mind, let us turn to The Banquet. In supposing that Wan Er has taken on the burden of Hamlet’s dramatic responsibilities, we may find it interesting that her character’s ambiguity derives instead from an assumed ‘disposition’ which presents itself as extreme equanimity (the antithesis of madness). Her radical composure—or what we could coin her ‘austere disposition’—is beautifully regulated by the actress, remaining intact and weaponized despite the political and romantic turmoil she faces. At Emperor Li’s first public appearance in court (an exhibition intended to flaunt his legitimacy), Wan Er—to everyone’s surprise—emerges, and parts like Moses the sea of generals and courtiers. Wan Er reminds Li that the Empress becomes ‘Empress Dowager’ on the death of her husband, thus she is the rightful dynastic heir. Zhang Ziyi (who plays Wan er) keeps her face composed yet charged—her visage a mask of marble impenetrable and unreadable as she walks up to the throne. When watching the scene play out, viewers are on edge: will the Emperor relinquish power? will Wan Er demand retribution? 

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In an unnerving act of submission, the Empress bows... yet not before fixing the camera with a stare as condemning as an executioner’s verdict. Viewers are left bathed in ambiguity— has Wan Er truly relinquishing power, or is her submissiveness all an act? Perhaps she instead hopes the Emperor takes the bow as a rigged display of passivity, staged for the benefit of the courtiers. The character’s mask reveals nothing. 

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Wan Er’s ‘austere disposition’ is thus integral to her political prowess. Yet it is also employed as a guise against love. Take for example the scene when Wan Er visits her romantic rival, Qing. Again, the Empress maintains a perplexing amount of restraint and facial composure, only lashing out verbally in quiet threats and insinuations. We get a similar stoney but ambiguous complexion towards the end of the film, at the moment the Emperor realizes Wan Er has tried to kill him. When the camera pans to Zhang Ziyi, audiences cannot tell if she perhaps did love him on some level—but ultimately loved power more. In cases of both extreme political and romantic instability, Wan Er retains a composure, or ‘antic disposition’. Thus, she is on track to rival Hamlet for a truly artful display of the play’s tragic plight. 

 

A crack in the mask

Over the decades, many scholars have written about Hamlet’s change in countenance after he returns from exile. His soliloquy, "How all occasions do inform against me" (not found in the folio edition), restates the prince’s intent on revenge whilst embodying his indecisiveness (Hamlet IV. 4. 32-66). The soliloquy also suggests an uncontrolled, frantic, and perhaps even contradictory reading of the protagonist’s disposition. We certainly feel that the Hamlet who walks passively into a probably-rigged duel with Laeretes is not the same clever, anticipatory prince of the previous acts. We can argue over what this character change reflects, but the point is, Hamlet most likely reaches a point where his feigned madness cannot be sustained. The character’s final utterance, "The rest is silence," seems more indicative of the melancholic Jaques than a schoolboy faking insanity (Hamlet V. 2. 341).

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Turning back to The Banquet, we witness a similar dramatic alteration in Wan Er. However, the breakage is more defined and resolute: the crack in the Empress’s stoical facade appears at the moment when she first feels the full weight of powerlessness. After Li understands that Qing was accidentally murdered by the poisonous wine intended for him, he asks the Lord Chamberlain to issue an edict which gives Qing a state burial. Suddenly, a shrill and unexpected cry reverberates around the palace hall. Wan Er yells at Yin: "What are you waiting for?!" pleading with the Minister to carry out her coup. Yet he in turn sides with the Emperor, calling Wan Er a "venomous woman." Thus, the Empress’s plan fails, even if she achieves her desired end result. 

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Wan Er is a careful, merciless planner. She remains one step ahead of the emperor, coming to defend Wu Luan in at least three different circumstances throughout the film: first, she anticipates the assassins storming the dance school in the first scenes, then she notices the real knife being substituted for the fake one during the mock-fight battle, and finally she sends the Minister’s son to bring back the prince from exile. But when Qing drinks the wine instead of her husband? Wan Er is frozen. Then comes the awful, pitiful cry. Her ‘austere disposition’ is cracked, and the character’s passion is now exposed. Important to the tragedy of the moment is realizing that it is not some character who outwits her—but rather that fate, bad luck, the curse (whatever you name it) has finally intervened. 

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Ambiguity done right

In return for Xiaogang’s artful reworking of madness and ambiguity in The Banquet, I would like to end by placing Wan Er among a pedigree of exemplary tragic heroes. I deem her worthy of this accolade not just in consequence of Zhang Ziyi’s stellar performance (Hood gets it right eventually). Crucially, the film stands out because of the unique construction of its final scene.

In Poetics, one of the great treatises on the nature of tragedy, Aristotle establishes that in order to create "complex" tragedy, a drama should (among other things) employ a pattern of recognition and reversal (Poetics 69). This catalyzes a tragic narratorial arc which, when done effectively, extracts emotion—or catharsis—from the viewer. According to Aristotle, recognition and reversal are also key to imbuing a character with dimension and depth. Xiaogang wonderfully displays this kind of character dimension, as viewers observe the principle of "recognition" in the emperor when he realizes Wan Er betrayed him, and then "reversal" in the Empress herself as she ascends to a position of power only to fall so suddenly to her demise. 

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After Wan Er’s final line—"Only I shall rise out of it like a phoenix"—the film cuts to a shot of a knife flying through the air. The fabric "of desire" blocks our view momentarily, but viewers soon see that the knife has pierced the Empress’s heart. We now know her end is near. While Wan Er manages to turn around and register her murderer before collapsing, audience’s are not shown who (or what) attacked her. Thus, the film concludes in a momentous moment of ambiguity.  

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Wan Er’s death comes swiftly and suddenly; it is a jarring unraveling of audience expectations—one only a true tragedy aficionado may see coming. After all, if the Empress is to achieve the tragic arc she deserves, the plot must conclude with the protagonist’s death. Yet what one could not predict was the unseen and anonymous assailant who carries out the murder. Viewers see the knife enter Wan Er. Then a minute later it is removed from her body and thrown into a moss-covered coy pond. The last shot of the film is one hovering over the water as the ripples from the knife slowly subside. We do not see who removed the weapon from her body or dropped it in the pond. Yet these two gestures imply that there was, ultimately, some active agent working behind the scenes to overthrow the Empress. While critics have argued the murderer to be the dead Emperor or the testy hand of "morality," I would conjecture that tragedy itself is the true culprit. After all, in order to live up to the grand, masterful, heart-wrenching spectacle of the film, Xiaogang’s heroine had to die. Only then can she rise like a phoenix, joining the ranks of great tragic muses, surpassing Gertrude along the way.