Pavilion of Women was billed by People's Daily, China's official newspaper, as the "first Chinese-made Hollywood film", and indeed was jointly produced with Universal Pictures, and shot in both English and Chinese.
If you never read the book, and come to this movie cold, and accept it as a Hollywood-style romantic epic melodrama set in 1930s China, then you probably won't be disappointed especially if you know nothing about Chinese society at the time. The film has high production values and compelling narrative elements in terms of western values that heroicize transgression: the irresistible romantic attraction between a Chinese wife and Western priest transgresses both social and religious propriety; the attraction between Chinese son and his father's concubine transgresses generational lines.
The problem is that the film is a contemporary love story masquerading as an historical drama that seeks to accrue legitimacy by referencing Pearl Buck's novel of the same name. The entire plot, the setting, the characters, their motivations, and their interrelationships are all utterly at odds with Buck's novel. The filmmakers took Buck's thoughtful story of a women's personal spiritual and philosophical odyssey in the context of traditional family relationships, and transformed it into a fairly ordinary story of physical and material lust to which is lent false importance through the crutch of sensational scenes of fire and war, and the pathos of orphaned children. Buck must be turning over in her grave.
The movie is set in Suzhou (rather than in an area remote from the war); it has omitted characters (two of the four brothers, one of their wives, and Fengmo's wife), changed the personality of every major character (Mr. Wu, Madame Wu, Andre); and created events that never occurred in the book (the orphanage fire, the Japanese invasions), manufactured encounters that would have been impossible in Chinese society of the time (e.g. conversations and meetings between Madame Wu and Andre, between Fengmo and Qiuming), and falsified the very social structure and gender relations that the novel sought to critique and explore.
The mutilations are legion, and surface right away, in the first moments of the film even before the credits. 1) In the movie bringing in a concubine is presented as the mother-in-law's idea whereas in the book it was Madame Wu's idea for freeing herself from childbearing (which makes Mr. Wu's fixation on oral-sex in the movie pure lasciviousness). 2) In the book, Madame Kang's birth difficulty occurs many months after Madame Wu's birthday and follows a series of conversations between the women about age and births. 3) In the book the priest Andre plays absolutely no part in Madame Kang's birth crisis; instead Madame Wu commandeers Mr. Kang to assist in the birth as a way of demonstrating to him the consequences of his sexual appetite so that he will leave her friend alone. Madame Wu emerges the hero, but the movie makes the white male the hero (surprise!). 4) The movie presents Mr. Wu as a domineering husband, whereas in the novel he is actually quite compliant and loving and resistant to the idea of a concubine. 5) In the book the concubine's arrival in the Wu household is discreetly maneuvered not proclaimed with a wedding, and absolutely not publicly revealed as a face-losing surprise to Mr. Wu. 6) The necklace in the movie is complete fabrication. The only thing Qiuming (correct transliteration for "autumn brightness") brings with her to the Wu household is the embroidered jacket in which she was swaddled as a foundling -- in the novel this later leads to a reuniting of Qiuming and her daughter (where is the daughter in the movie?) with her birth mother (the movie just sends her off all alone on a boat with some silver coins). 7) The novel's Andre was born in Italy, not the U.S., had a full beard, and was hired to teach foreign languages to Fengmo. It would have been prohibited for Qiuming to participate; even Madame Wu herself had to eavesdrop from another room. Because of the domestic and social controls on interaction between the sexes, the conversations and encounters in the movie could never have taken place. 8) The orphans in the book are all girls (basically only daughters are abandoned). And 9) in the book no one was directly involved with the army, the Communist Party, or the Sino-Japanese War.
There are many, many more discrepancies, and I could go on and on about them. But suffice it to say that this movie should not have been given the name of the novel; and indeed, the title makes no sense in the context of the film. The movie should have been given a different name so that it could stand on its own merits instead of cheapening Buck's literary work and inviting the kind of harsh criticism I have felt compelled to give here.
If you never read the book, and come to this movie cold, and accept it as a Hollywood-style romantic epic melodrama set in 1930s China, then you probably won't be disappointed especially if you know nothing about Chinese society at the time. The film has high production values and compelling narrative elements in terms of western values that heroicize transgression: the irresistible romantic attraction between a Chinese wife and Western priest transgresses both social and religious propriety; the attraction between Chinese son and his father's concubine transgresses generational lines.
The problem is that the film is a contemporary love story masquerading as an historical drama that seeks to accrue legitimacy by referencing Pearl Buck's novel of the same name. The entire plot, the setting, the characters, their motivations, and their interrelationships are all utterly at odds with Buck's novel. The filmmakers took Buck's thoughtful story of a women's personal spiritual and philosophical odyssey in the context of traditional family relationships, and transformed it into a fairly ordinary story of physical and material lust to which is lent false importance through the crutch of sensational scenes of fire and war, and the pathos of orphaned children. Buck must be turning over in her grave.
The movie is set in Suzhou (rather than in an area remote from the war); it has omitted characters (two of the four brothers, one of their wives, and Fengmo's wife), changed the personality of every major character (Mr. Wu, Madame Wu, Andre); and created events that never occurred in the book (the orphanage fire, the Japanese invasions), manufactured encounters that would have been impossible in Chinese society of the time (e.g. conversations and meetings between Madame Wu and Andre, between Fengmo and Qiuming), and falsified the very social structure and gender relations that the novel sought to critique and explore.
The mutilations are legion, and surface right away, in the first moments of the film even before the credits. 1) In the movie bringing in a concubine is presented as the mother-in-law's idea whereas in the book it was Madame Wu's idea for freeing herself from childbearing (which makes Mr. Wu's fixation on oral-sex in the movie pure lasciviousness). 2) In the book, Madame Kang's birth difficulty occurs many months after Madame Wu's birthday and follows a series of conversations between the women about age and births. 3) In the book the priest Andre plays absolutely no part in Madame Kang's birth crisis; instead Madame Wu commandeers Mr. Kang to assist in the birth as a way of demonstrating to him the consequences of his sexual appetite so that he will leave her friend alone. Madame Wu emerges the hero, but the movie makes the white male the hero (surprise!). 4) The movie presents Mr. Wu as a domineering husband, whereas in the novel he is actually quite compliant and loving and resistant to the idea of a concubine. 5) In the book the concubine's arrival in the Wu household is discreetly maneuvered not proclaimed with a wedding, and absolutely not publicly revealed as a face-losing surprise to Mr. Wu. 6) The necklace in the movie is complete fabrication. The only thing Qiuming (correct transliteration for "autumn brightness") brings with her to the Wu household is the embroidered jacket in which she was swaddled as a foundling -- in the novel this later leads to a reuniting of Qiuming and her daughter (where is the daughter in the movie?) with her birth mother (the movie just sends her off all alone on a boat with some silver coins). 7) The novel's Andre was born in Italy, not the U.S., had a full beard, and was hired to teach foreign languages to Fengmo. It would have been prohibited for Qiuming to participate; even Madame Wu herself had to eavesdrop from another room. Because of the domestic and social controls on interaction between the sexes, the conversations and encounters in the movie could never have taken place. 8) The orphans in the book are all girls (basically only daughters are abandoned). And 9) in the book no one was directly involved with the army, the Communist Party, or the Sino-Japanese War.
There are many, many more discrepancies, and I could go on and on about them. But suffice it to say that this movie should not have been given the name of the novel; and indeed, the title makes no sense in the context of the film. The movie should have been given a different name so that it could stand on its own merits instead of cheapening Buck's literary work and inviting the kind of harsh criticism I have felt compelled to give here.