Farewell My Concubine" won the top prize at the 46th Cannes International Film Festival. As a historical drama, what is its main story?

"Farewell My Concubine" mainly tells the story of two Peking Opera actresses' half-century of sorrows and joys, showing the thinking and understanding of traditional culture, human existence and human nature.

The plot: Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi) and Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) are a pair of brothers who have grown up together since childhood, and one of them plays a student and the other plays a dancer, who have always cooperated with each other seamlessly, especially in Farewell My Concubine, which has been widely acclaimed in Beijing, and for this reason, the two of them have agreed to co-star in the movie Farewell My Concubine for the rest of their lives.

But their understanding of the relationship between theater and life is fundamentally different. Duan Xiaolou knows that theater is not life, while Cheng Dieyi is not separate from theater. Duan Xiaolou married the famous prostitute Juxian (Gong Li) when he thought it was time to start a family, causing Cheng Dieyi to recognize Juxian as a shameful third party and making Duan Xiaolou a traitor. Since then, the love-hate relationship between the three of them around the play Farewell My Concubine began to escalate along with the changing times and clouds, and eventually led to a tragedy.

Expanded Information

Farewell My Concubine:

1, Cheng Dieyi

Peking Opera singer, very obsessed with Peking Opera. She was sold by her mother to a Peking opera troupe to learn how to sing in a green dress, and later became famous for co-starring in "Farewell My Concubine" with her brother Duan Xiaolou. Cheng Dieyi's performance as Yu Ji reached a level of obliviousness that made her "not crazy, not alive", which, coupled with Cheng Dieyi's strange experience as a child, made Cheng Dieyi really sink into her "dream of the opera".

2, Juxian

Flower House, the head of the prostitutes, for the Kyoto actor Duan Xiaolou favorite, and Duan Xiaolou fell in love with each other over time, and the two eventually came together and married.

3, Duan Xiaolou

Sharing Cheng Dieyi's obsession with Peking Opera, he was Cheng Dieyi's partner when she sang Peking Opera. He looks strong on the surface, but is actually very weak inside. He talks about being patriotic and not singing for the Japanese, but when he was arrested himself it was his junior Cheng Dieyi who sacrificed himself to get him out.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Farewell My Concubine