A scene from the movie The Golden Era starring (from left) Zhu Yawen, Tang Wei, Feng Shaofeng, Wang Qianyuan and Hao lei. Photo: CFP

Among the numerous national holiday movies, The Golden Era's ever present promotional posters, trailers and star-studded cast featuring Tang Wei, Feng Shaofeng, Yuan Quan and Wang Zhiwen, set expectations high. However, Hong Kong based director Ann Hui's film earned a disappointing box office of only 42.3 million yuan ($6.9 million) 11 days after its premiere. Compared to Breakup Buddies, Dearest and Friday's Guardians of the Galaxy, the three-hour movies focus on the life of modern Chinese writer Xiao Hong (played by Tang Wei) doesn't seem to have struck a chord among the public even though the film has earned a fairly high score of 7 out of 10 on douban.com along with quite a lot of reviews praising the film's high-quality.

While the media and promotion companies are busy studying why the movie didn't perform as expected, the film has still led to an obvious increase in the sale of Xiao Hong's books. According to a report in The Mirror newspaper, both bookstores online and on the street in Beijing have seen a double increase in sales of the writer's books over the National holidays. Discussions about this author who dies well over 70 years ago has also started trending on social media.

Compared to other films about modern Chinese female writers, such as the Golden Horse Award winning movie Red Dust (1990 by Yim Ho) based on the stories of Eileen Chang, The Golden Era is much heavier and depicts a more painful experience than just a simple romance.

Needed preparation

As the film tells Xiao Hong's story in a very unique way, trying to approach the author's life from a very objective angle, those who are fans of Xiao's work may not have much of a problem following what is going on, but for those who know nothing of the author besides her name, may be left very confused as to who exactly Xiao was and what her contributions to literature actually were after the movie. Most of the plot covers how Xiao gets along with her friends and lovers, how she suffered from poverty and disease, and her escape from one city to another during wartime.

For those who want to get the full-experience, you might want to prepare yourself before watching the film by reading one or two works by Xiao, such as her autobiographical novel Tales of Hulan River. This may provide some help understanding why everyone in the film is praising her writing talent and how deeply she understood and was able to express life's miseries, and may also help keep you from getting bored watching her never-ending flight during the three-hour film.

The movie seems to be trying to be a documentary. At different times during the film, some characters come on screen turn to the camera and explain what they know about Xiao Hong. This type of monologue creates some distance between the audience and the story. The director also uses several montages to skip ahead in time, stringing together comments and evidence from Xiao's life in order to portray a picture of the author, but this causes the storyline to become somewhat fragmented and a bit difficult to follow.

Concession and pain

As a woman, Xiao's life is full of concession and misery. Her early life was a fight with poverty. Though born to a middle-class family in her rural hometown, she lost their support after her escape from an arranged marriage.

Unlike Eileen Chang, Xiao was unable to support herself as a writer when she first started out. During her short life of 31 years, she was constantly on the move heading from one place to another. At one point she is abandoned by her lover at a hotel after she becomes pregnant, and later she is almost sold to a brothel.

The film depicts that while she had an outstanding mind she was never an independent woman. She is constantly seeking help from men throughout her life, first her cousin, then her fiancé, her lover Xiao Jun (Feng Shaofeng) and finally notable author Duanmu Hongliang (Zhu Yawen). However, all except Duanmu betray her at one point or another. She becomes pregnant twice but loses her babies each time, giving her first away to a stranger, and losing the second to a mysterious crib death.

Watching her years of suffering through poverty, betrayal and loss, it's easy to understand how she was able to write about the pain of life with such sympathy and understanding.

Her golden era

The movie also features some famous modern writers such as Lu Xun and Ding Ling. They stand on the other side of the time: Lu uses his writing talents to fight against China's enemies and enlighten the people, while Ding is portrayed as a gallant woman who decided to get directly involved in the war rather than just writing. They end up being seen as heroes for a very long time, but Xiao Hong herself only wants a peaceful room to herself so she can sit and write about her thoughts on life.

In a letter to her lover Xiao Jun written in November of 1936, a time when she was living in Japan, she writes her thoughts about her own "golden era": "When the pale moonlight covers my window, I prefer to turn off the lights and sit down in silence. During this silence, voices appear in my mind and ask, 'Isn't this my golden era?' … Free and comfortable, peaceful and at ease, no need to worry about money, it is indeed my golden era, but I must spend it in a cage…"

In the movie, this moment is beautiful but ironic. The peaceful time is short and superficial, as it takes place only a month after the death of her important friend and teacher, Lu Xun, and she later finds out that her lover is having an affair with their friend, who is now pregnant. Two months later she moves back to China, her moment of peace gone forever.

The main theme of the movie is about freedom. Although some literature critics categorize Xiao Hong as a leftist writer, just like Lu, as most of her work was about the misery of people at the bottom of society, director Ann Hui has Xiao state in a conversation with famed writer Luo Binji that she is free to write in her own style however she may like. "There are different styles of writers in the world, so there are also different styles of writing. And I just want to be myself," Xiao explains in the film.