I’m surprised this movie even exists. Light Chaser Animation 追光动画 previously brought us two movies about the legend of the White Snake (White Snake and Green Snake) and two movies adapted from characters/storylines from the Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods: New Gods: Nezha Reborn and New Gods: Yang Jian. All fantasy/mythology films. Now for this outing they thought: Hey, let’s make an animated movie about the lives of two Tang dynasty poets!
That’s what Chang’an 长安三万里 (lit. 30,000 Miles to Chang’an) is, an animated movie about the lives of two Tang dynasty poets: Gao Shi 高適 and Li Bai 李白. You’d think, it being an animated movie, that there would be some wacky hiinks, maybe an escapade that stretches history to the breaking point, maybe having Li Bai on some swashbuckling adventure where he fights off the rebel An Lushan and saves the empire and the majestic thearch and his Precious Consort Yang are narrowly saved from the cluthes of death.
Nope. There’s no breaking of history. There’s no fantastic adventure. There’s not even any depiction of the majestic thearch (in this case that would be Xuanzong) or Precious Consort Yang at all, not any scene taking place in the imperial palace.
There’s no romance.
There’s no villain.
There’s not a single character in this film that makes you go “Aww fuck that guy!” It’s just a story of two men, their friendship, and the struggles and joys they face as they make their way through life, coming in and out of each other’s lives as they go on their way living their lives.
It’s an original film and a refreshing concept. Gao Shi is the commissioner or rule and measures for Sichuan, holed up in a fort while the Tibtean army closes in. He’s an elderly man by now when a eunuch inspector from the imperial court arrives to check up on him and starts asking him about Li Bai. This prompts Gao Shi to begin his tale, a frame narrative whereby he tells of his life and his enduring friendship with famed poet Li Bai.
There’s a lot of Chinese history and culture in this film, and it’s nice that it doesn’t hold your hand in explaining all of it. We get glimpes of what it’s like for a young man trying to become an official. There’s mention of the circulation of scrolls, where exam candidates would present a scroll of their poetry and prose writings to influential men in the hopes of securing a recommendation. Without such backing it was impossible to become an official, as they helped determine who would pass the exams. We see Gao Shi and Li Bai both fail at this, Gao Shi because he had no connections, and Li Bai because he came from a merchant family, which was looked down on in those days.
For the most part the film is true to history. Neither Li Bai nor Gao Shi ever did pass the exams to become officials. Li Bai never even sat for the exams. Gao Shi joined the army and was promoted that way, while Li Bai was briefly called to court and served the majestic thearch, but then was out again and exiled. In the film, Li Bai gets introduced to court by Princess Jade Perfected, though in reality it was the poet/Daoist Wu Yun who recommended him. Unforunately Wu Yun does not appear in the film.
Many other famous individuals do though, a lot of them famous poets. Such as Wang Wei, Meng Haoran, Wang Changling, Chang Jian, Cui Xongzhi, He Zhizhang, Cen Shen, Cen Xun, Li Yong, Li Jin, Yuan Danqiu, Zhang Xu, and even a young Du Fu.
There’s a lot of poetry in this movie, as one would expect. One spectacular scene is when Li Bai composes his famous poem “Bring in the Wine” 將進酒. This visuals that accompany it are breathtaking. It would have been even cooler if the film had been done in Medieval Chinese rather than Mandarin. Not a realistic request, but it would have been cool to hear the poems pronounced closer to how they would have really been pronounced during the Tang dynasty. Mandarin did not exist then, and reading Tang poetry in Mandarin makes it so that sometimes the end rhyme, which all these poems have, doesn’t really work. That is, sometimes the poems don’t rhyme when you read it in Mandarin.
I also like how the horses are depicted all chunky and fat like they are in Tang-era paintings. That was a nice touch.
The capital city of Chang’an is maginficently depicted, as is the important cultural city of Yangzhou. Zhang Xu is shown discovering the key to calligraphy after seeing a sword dance performed by Pei Min (the legend actually has him being inspired by Lady Gongsun and her disciple).
What I like most about this movie is that it’s just two men living their lives. It’s Gao Shi’s story, so we only see Li Bai when Gao Shi sees him. They come and go in and out of each other’s lives, frequently bidding farewell, and then we follow Gao Shi on the next step in his life, be it going back home to study or joining the army and fighting. Then Li Bai shows up again and there’s usually an exuberant drinking party. Then they go their separate ways again.
It’s not kid’s movie, and though there’s humor in it, it’s not a comedy. It’s also pretty long, a little over two and a half hours. Some will definitely find it to be too long and too slow paced. But as a fan of the Tang dyasty and of Tang poetry, I couldn’t get enough. I never would have imagined such a movie would be made. There’s a wistful melancholy about the film, mono no aware, the emotional sighing over the impermance of things. Life goes on, we get old, people leave our lives and we remember them. And that’s nice.
There’s not a lot of drama. There’s no big fight where Gao Shi and Li Bai have a falling out and have to reconcile later. No, there are some disagreements, like when Gao Shi disapproves of Li Bai’s plan to marry into his fiancee’s family so that his children will take her surname. Gao Shi is against this because society looks down on such things. But there’s no big blow up. The conflict in the movie largely stems from the mundane, the average life decisions we all have to face. What do you do when you face a setback? What’s your next step when you fail? At one point for Gao Shi that means going back home to study and then trying again. For Li Bai it means becoming ordained as a Daoist and trying to transcend the mundane world.
It’s very male-centric. There are no major female characters in this film. Li Bai’s wives make brief appearances, and there’s a couple artiste dancers. One swordswoman friend of Li Bai, but she has just one scene. Rather, Chang’an is focused on male friendship. It’s at least nice that a romance plotline was not forced into the story where it didn’t reall fit. That happens too often, but it does not happen here.
Also the scenery is gorgeous, whether it’s the magnificent capital of Chang’an, the largest, greatest city in the world at the time, or the countryside where Gao Shi retires back to to study and regroup. Or a little stream with the Tibeten mountains in the background. This film is in no way “wuxia”, but there is a strong feeling of “jianghu” in its original sense, the rivers and lakes, the countryside detached from the imperial court. If you get a chance to watch this movie you’ll see what I mean.
So keep an eye on this one. I don’t know if it’s going to get a wider release, but it did have English subtitles underneath the Chinese ones, so one hopes it does get a wider international release.
Highly recommended.
EDIT: Oh yes, I almost forgot something else I wanted to mention. It was really cool to see a not very well known poetry collection featured here:《河岳英靈集》(A Collection of the Finest Souls of Rivers and Mountains). This is a poetry anthology compiled in 753 by Yin Fan 殷璠, and it collects poems from poets who were popular during that time period, so it is a contemporary look at who was popular during Li Bai’s time. Gao Shi has a copy of this collection at the beginning of the film and many of the poets in the movie are poets collected here. The movie even comments on how Du Fu, widely considered China’s greatest poet, is not featured in it, which was a nice touch. He’s not in the collection because he did not gain recognition until after his death. He wasn’t popular during his lifetime.
Here’s a trailer with English subtitles:
