Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Writers: Jean-Jacques Annaud,

John Collee, Lu Wei,

Alain godard

《狼图腾》Láng Túténg

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Writers: Jean-Jacques Annaud,

John Collee, Lu Wei,

Alain godard

WOlF TOTEM

When Jiang Rong’s(姜戎)novel Wolf Totem

was published in 2004, it saw huge sales, won critical acclaim (the inaugural Man Asia Literary Prize), achieved resonance with the public, and was generally seen as a tour de force. Sadly, the 2015 film adaptation is unlikely to do the same, the movie often feeling as bereft and empty as the Inner Mongolian grasslands on which it was shot；the film is a sheep in wolf’s clothing, if you will forgive strained lupine metaphors. The film follows the journey of Chen Zhen (Feng Shaofeng) and his friend Yang Ke (Shawn Dou) at the start of the Cultural Revolution when they are posted from Beijing to Inner Mongolia to help teach Mandarin to nomadic herdsmen. Along the way our young protagonists learn many things, among them: city boys will never truly understand rural life (and might be better off in Beijing)； political apparatchiks are largely bothersome and don’t know what they are doing (especially when it comes to dealing with shepherds)； and, most importantly, don’t mess with the wolves, for they are spiritual animals.

Fundamentally, the film aims at penetrating two overlapping themes: firstly, that city types, and by the extension the government, should be wary of imposing their will upon the fountain of knowledge that are indigenous ethnic populations, in this case wise and noble herdsmen who have existed for centuries without interference from outsiders. Secondly, do not toy with the delicate balance of nature, specifically that between grass, gazelle, sheep, man, and wolf, as this will inevitably cause intense ecological disaster. Of course both of these themes are immensely laudable, but when such ideas are delivered without conviction, meaning, or the pre-requisite skill, instead seemingly just for the sake of it, well, nobody listens and it all ends badly—this is largely the case with Wolf Totem.

Chen Zhen: Did the awe that the Mongolian wolf inspired come from a cult deeply entrenched in man’s brain since time immemorial? My heart filled with gratitude for the secret forces that came to my rescue. I had the feeling that I’d started to open the door on the spiritual world of the grassland people.

Yīn cǎoyuánláng suǒ chǎnshēng de kǒngjù yǔ jìngwèi, shìbushi cóng yuánshǐ

JEAN-JACQUES ANNAUD

Annaud is a French director best known for The Name of the Rose, The Lover, and Seven Years in Tibet. He has won four Cesar awards and is believed to have been picked for Wolf Totem due to having successfully directed animals in several films. The wolves used in the film were not CgI, but wolf cubs picked from Chinese zoos and trained over several years. shíqī qǐ, jiùshì rénmen xīnlíng zhōng suǒ chóngbài de túténg. Wǒ duì zhè zhǒng shénmì de lìliàng jǐ yǔ wǒ de bāngzhù mǎnhuái gǎnjī. Wǒ yǒu zhǒng gǎnjué, wǒ yǐjīng tuīkāi le tōngwǎng cǎoyuán rénmín jīngshén shìjiè de nà shàn mén.

因草原狼所产生的恐惧与敬畏，是不是从原始时期起，就是人们心灵中所崇拜的图腾。我对这种神秘的力量给予我的帮助满怀感激。我有种感觉，我已经推开了通往草原人民精神世界的那扇门。

The choice of French director Jean-Jacques Annaud was in many ways an odd choice from the outset. His last China film, Seven Years in Tibet was banned in China and, as one would imagine, widely criticized by the authorities. However, somewhat remarkably, it seems he has been forgiven. Annaud has apologized for any upset feelings he caused anyone with his earlier film. And Wolf Totem, as with the book, had no problems with censors at all, which, when considering the sensitive themes it touches on, is a bit strange. The more cynical among us could be inclined to ask if this is why the film, unlike the wolves shown in it, lacks bite.

All this is not to say that parts of the film are not magnificent. Without a shadow of a doubt, it is a visually stunning film； the sweeping score is affectingly emotional and you see superb shot after superb shot of the Inner Mongolian grasslands, in snow, in spring, and in summer. It is all rather epic, which is all just as well as it is one of those films where you feel nothing would be lost if the voices, or more specifically the subtitles, were turned off. Such is the confusion of the plot.

Chen Zhen 〔Feng Shaofeng〕 pulls his little wolf cub on a leash

Other than the broad and obvious“leave those wolves alone” and “don’t mess with the indigenous population”message, the film lacks direction and any sense of narrative cohesion. Often it is not clear if the “bad guys” are the party officials, the teachers from Beijing, or even the wolves themselves, which would all be well and good if this was a delicate study in ambiguity but it isn’t. Instead it feels like a film that can’t quite find its identity. Even the almost-love story, always a useful device to hold an iffy plot together, feels bolted on at the last minute, which is a pity as Ankhynam Ragchaa turns in, perhaps, the only mesmerizing performance of the film, as Gasma, the Mongolian widowed early in the film, her affections slowly moving toward Chen. She deserved more screen time.

For many, the wolf has long been the archetypal “spirit animal”, whatever that means, and for those that buy into such mythology, it is easy to assume the premise of the film is on to a bit of a winner, but, again, this is a trope dealt with in clunky fashion. The script’s attempt to form a timeless bond between wolves and Mongolian herdsmen is strained at best, as when the film’s wise old man—let’s call him the Mr. Miyagi figure—tells Chen, “Life is about choosing the right moment, wolves and Mongols understand that.” Attempts to inextricably link the fate of the Mongol people with wolves become increasingly spurious, to the point where at one point, perhaps the greatest Mongol of them all is enlisted, “Genghis Khan was a master of war； he learned what he knew of war by studying wolves.”Perhaps, such words should not be taken literally and instead read as metaphor, but it is difficult when they come off as parody rather than anything meaningful. And all this isn’t helped by the fact that it has left more than a few Mongolians unimpressed.

FENG SHAOFENG 〔冯绍峰〕

Feng 〔also known as William Feng〕 was born in Shanghai and has appeared in Painted Skin: The Resurrection 〔《画皮2》〕, Tai Chi Hero 〔《太极之英雄崛起》〕, and the Monkey King 2 〔《西游记之三打白骨精》〕,. He has also played many prominent parts on several Chinese TV shows

Bilig: You want to study wolves? Look, what do you think they'll do?

Nǐ bú shì xiǎng yánjiū láng ma, nǐ kànkan, xiànzài tāmen xiǎng gàn shénme?

你不是想研究狼嘛，你看看，现在他们想干什么？

Chen Zhen: What are they waiting for?

Tāmen wèi shénme hái bù xíngdòng?

他们为什么还不行动?

Bilig: They have been waiting for this moment for months.The desire to kill tortures them. But they are not going to waste it because of haste. How do you think genghis Khan defeated the great armies of the world with so few mounted warriors? He learnt the art of war by studying the wolves that you have in front of you.

Láng děng zhè yíkè yǐjīng děngle hǎo jǐ gè yuè le, tāmen xiǎng yìjǔ jiānmiè huángyáng. Dàn tāmen bú huì yìshí xīnjí ér wùle dàshì. Nǐ yǐwéi Chéngjísīhán dàizhe zhème shǎo de bīng, zěnme jiù dǎbàile shìjiè shàng de qiānjūn wànmǎ, dōushì gēn nǐ yǎnqián de zhèxiē láng, xuéhuìle dǎzhàng de mìjué.

狼等这一刻已经等了好几个月了，它们想一举歼灭黄羊。但他们不会一时心急而误了大事。你以为成吉思汗带着这么少的兵，怎么就打败了世界上的千军万马，都是跟你眼前的这些狼，学会了打仗的秘诀。

At the time of the film’s release, in the spring of this year, Chinese Mongolian writer Guo Xuebo slammed what the film was trying to do, writing, “The ‘wolf totem’in both the novel and the movie is a distortion of our Mongolian culture. Wolves are regarded as the enemy of Mongolian herdsmen…I have never seen any written records suggesting that the wolf is a totem of the Mongolian people.” If Guo is correct, it is not difficult to view the film as spectacularly off base. You don’t need to be a Mongolian expert to see that research has been replaced by pithy but somewhat useless asides, as in “The problem for us Mongols is that our history was written by our enemies not ourselves.” It all smacks of lazy screenwriting of the lowest common denominator, but then perhaps that is okay； the film did after all perform strongly at the box office.

The back end of the film sees Chen, somewhat unwisely, secretly adopt and raise a wolf cub； the trick here is for the audience to begin to feel the bond growing between man and wolf, but it never really happens. There are a few moments of comedy, but they are often unintended, as when Yang tells Chen “But raising a wolf amongst a community of shepherds, do you think this is a good idea?” Er, probably not chaps, no.

Locals welcome the intellectuals from Beijing

Yang Ke: Chen Zhen, do it now.

Chén Zhèn, jiù xiànzài ba.

陈阵，就现在吧。

Chen Zhen: What?

Shénme?

什么？

Yang: Free your wolf cub.

Ràng xiǎoláng huíqù a.

让小狼回去啊。

Chen: I can’t free him right now. He has the smell of man on him now. The pack may kill him.

Wǒ xiànzài bù néng ràng tā huíqù, tā shēnshang yǐjīng yǒu rén de qìwèi le. Lángqún huì yǎosǐ tā de.

我现在不能让它回去，它身上已经有人的气味了。狼群会咬死它的。

Somehow scenes that are supposed to pack an emotional punch instead leave you squirming, as with the last scene in the film, where Chen is left alone to ponder all that has happened, a single tear streaming down his cheek. This would be perfectly fine, albeit a touch corny, as an ending. But it is all spoilt, of course, as Chen then looks up into the sky and, in Disney fashion, spies a cloud that has formed into the shape of a perfect wolf. Instead of feeling sad, you want to howl with laughter.

- CARlOS OTTERY