Propaganda Preceding Purpose

               Many times throughout my experiences watching melodramatic pieces I sit there and question how elements of a story actually contribute to them being “melodrama” and not just drama. The character’s interactions with one another are generally big indicators, however exaggerated figurative effects such as character motivations, perspectives, and dialogue are also often prevalent in films that rely more on the story being told than the characters interacting. So a large part of determining a film’s worth in the melodramatic sense is often dependent on deciphering what form of movie it is, a character-centric one or a story-centric one.  In both cases, an effect such as a well-timed musical piece reflecting a character’s perspective can often heighten a dramatic moment to one that is “excessive” enough to be considered melodrama, such as the ending parade scene in Story of the Last Chrysanthemum. But, these figurative effects, at their core, are just ancillary devices, and the elevation of drama to melodrama in story-centric films are actually heavily dependent on the quality of the story.   

               To this degree is where a movie such as China Nights really fails to deliver in the melodramatic mode. The story, essentially, is a romantic development between a leading male character – who is Japanese – and a likewise leading female character – who is Chinese – during a period of warring between Japan and China. For all intents and purposes, the story is a propaganda film, devised to portray a kinder, gentler version of the Japanese to the Chinese locals in Japanese controlled-domains. The development of the romance between the two characters is, to put it nicely, curiously convenient. The female Chinese lead, named Kei Ran in the film, is at first introduced to be alien to this Japanese controlled domain, and her feelings for the Japanese are squarely unfriendly.

Through the progression of the film, her tone and behavior towards the Japanese change in-sync with the treatment and relationship development she has with the male Japanese lead, named Hase Tetsuo. To that end, any drama that develops within the movie is a result of international cultural barriers and how people of different nationalities sometimes just do not know enough about each other (or at least, that is what the intention of the propaganda was supposed to be). The depiction of the Japanese in the film was somewhat holier-than-thou, with many moments dedicated to showing how tender Mr. Hase was and how forgiving the Japanese people were of war time tragedy, while notoriously the only Chinese character in the form of Kei Ran was depicted as a rude unrelenting grudge-bearer.  

The appeasement of the Japanese conscience with this film, as it was made during the warring period with China in the early-to-mid 1900s, is explicitly why is fails so disastrously in tugging any melodramatic heartstrings with its audience. Naturally, the outline of the film would seem to be a character-centric one, yet the characters in the film are so fundamentally blank and crude, that they come across as almost robotic. Their actions, particularly Kei Ran’s, are tremendously plot convenient. One fine example of that is Kei Ran’s return to the hotel, after having essentially “ran away” and worried the entirety of the main cast, especially Hase. She returns still seething with contempt for the people around her for being the perpetrators of her homeland’s destruction.  In the scene prior, one of the ensemble named Nobuko, goes on a truly cringe-worthy speech about how both sides in war are bad and that those burned by the consequences of it should not hold grudges, just as she, the noble Japanese icon, had not. So, Kei Ran, after having been baptized on the moralities of war, returns to a flustered group of Japanese that, for reasons really inexplicable to the audience, care ever so deeply for her. They shower her with positives reactions, offering her food and shelter and words of comfort.

Naturally, Kei Ran brashly shoves it all away and turns to insults as her defense against them. The scene culminates in a moment where Hase, the gentlemanly kind and caring Japanese prototype, very violently hits her and knocks her down. He then immediately retreats from her and breaks down into a pathetic speech about how he was a victim of hers, how she “beat” him into turning violent (even though he clearly truly never meant to be violent to her, because for you see, no honest worthwhile Japanese man would do such a thing). This speech, for truly no reason, inspires Kei Ran to then see that the Japanese, and specifically Hase, are actually truly good people that do care for her. In a way, she very clearly demonstrates some form of Stockholm, or even more morbidly some form of grotesque battered woman syndrome.  Her reaction is simply indescribably unreasonable.

By generic technical terms, these coupled scene should be “dramatic”, if not “melodramatic.” But, unfortunately, they are not. The character interactions are abysmally superficial and illogical. With the exception of Hase and Kei Ran, the other character’s emotions are virtually sterile. Nobuko’s speech about grudges is, on its surface, perhaps a correct one. But the circumstances she describes it in, where she uses her own experience of suffering from family disasters as a jumping off point for victim-blaming Kei Ran for not behaving the same as her, are gross. Hase’s outrage over Kei Ran’s “betrayal”, despite her not really owing him anything as none of his actions were of her desire or decision, is heavily, heavily forced. There is no natural charm to the way they interact with each other. All of their actions simply serve to maintain the story’s over-arching theme about acceptance of the Japanese people by the Chinese. Kei Ran’s drastic reversal of her opinion on the Japanese after being physically assaulted makes no real sense, because physically assaulting someone is not down out of concern for them, it is down out of concern for control of them.

Simply put, none of their character interactions make sense.  Not from a logical standpoint, nor from an emotionally driven irrational one. So if the character interactions are so base, then the primary source for the drama in the movie is at the mercy of the story and its narrative. And unfortunately, China Nights’ story is too brutally superficial and underdeveloped to have any real dramatic weight. Therefore, whenever the characters take action, when seen from the visor of the entire movie, their behavior changes are always used as a reference point for their actions. And because these changes are so radical despite not having any real backing, it is subjectively hard to recognize the dramatic moments of the movie to have any real merit. And if the dramatic elements are questionable, than the melodramatic ones are even more so.

There are some reasonable points in the latter half of the movie, where Kei Ran and Hase have developed honest romantic feelings, that the drama is somewhat better handled via the narrative. Specifically, when Hase goes to the frontlines, and his life is put into question (and the subsequent emotional turmoil this puts on Kei Ran), we see honest and legitimate reactions to a story by the characters. Kei Ran’s emotional destruction from believing to have lost a loved one, specifically to war, is far more believable here. The aftermath of his return, and how they interact in the final scenes, makes both logical and emotional sense. To that end, one may be able to describe the latter portion of the movie as drama, and even melodrama if one considers the potential suicide plot by Kei Ran to have been legitimate.

Kei Ran potentially attempting suicide before Hase re-appears

But the problem with China Nights is that you cannot isolate a portions of the story for praise of its melodramatic significance, because the story is reliant on the entire “picture” being seen as one coherent whole. Otherwise, the film would have no actual purpose, as the point of the propaganda film was international endearment. It was not a simple movie about a romance between people of different nationalities; that was only an aspect of it.  And if the motivations, perspectives, and dialogue in this “whole picture” are too disorganized, presumptuous and forced, then these portions in isolation are contextually disingenuous. And that is why they cannot be considered real moments of “melodrama,” as the drama within them is fake to begin with.