Chow Yun Fat as Confucius The Movie

Quote :

"Forget injuries, never forget kindness" (Confucius)

This year the Chinese people and Chinese society will enter the Lunar New Year on February 14, 2010 along with the St. Valentine's day. There will be a wonderful movie to celebrate the Lunar New Year, it's the biopic of Confucius, the greatest educator and thinker of China and not just in the mainland, the influence of his teaching has been spreading to Japan and Korea and many other countries.

The Biopic "Confucius" is set to be released across China on January 22, 2010. Directed by female director Hu Mei with a budget of $ 2.8 million. Shooting will be held most in the Hebei province. The movie will screen to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of china and Confusius' 2,560th birthday.

Confucius' teaching are now gaining popularity as a way of bringing morals to the country of China.

Beside is directed by Hu Mei, this movie also starred by movie stars Chow Yun Fat, Zhou Xun, Chen Jianbin, and Ren Quan. In this movie, Confusius is a master of both philosophy and martial arts and also involved in love affairs. Like Chow said in one interview, that he won't play a character with a halo. He just knew only to play a real person.

Confucius or in Chinese Kong Qiu or Master Kong (traditionally lived September 28, 551 BC - 479 BC) was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese people thought and life.

His philosophy emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values gained prominence in China over other doctrines, such as Legalism or Taoism during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE). He was born in Lu State, this state was in the South of modern-day Shandong Province. Confucius was from a warrior family. His father Shulianghe was a famous warrior who had military exploit in two battles. Confucius' thoughts have been developed into a system of philosophy known as Confucianism . It was introduced to Europe by the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, who was the first to Latinise the name as "Confucius."

His teachings may be found in the Analects of Confucius , a collection of "brief aphoristic fragments", which was compiled many years after his death. For nearly 2,000 years he was thought to be the editor or author of all the Five Classics such as the Classic of Rites, and the Spring and Autumn Annals.

Confucius lost his father when he was three years old, and then his mother Yan Zhengzai took him and left the house because as a concubine, she wanted to avoid mistreatment from Shulianghe's formal wife. Thus, Confucius lived in poverty with his mother since childhood. With the support and encouragement of his mother, Confucius was very diligent in his studies. When Confucius was seventeen years old, his mother died of illness and overwork. Three years later, Confucius married a young woman who was from the Qiguan family of the Song state. Though he had a wife who loved him, he left his family to strive for his ideals. Confucius wanted to revive the perfect virtue of Huaxia (Chinese civilization) and the classical properties of the Western Zhou Dynasty to build a great, harmonious and humanistic society.

Confucius presents himself as a "transmitter who invented nothing". He puts the greatest emphasis on the importance of study, and it is the Chinese character for study (or learning) that opens the text. In this respect, he is seen by Chinese people as the Greatest Master. Far from trying to build a systematic theory of life and society or establish a formalism of rites, he wanted his disciples to think deeply for themselves and relentlessly study the outside world, mostly through the old scriptures and by relating the moral problems of the present to past political events (like the Annals) or past expressions of feelings by common people and reflective members of the elite, preserved in the poems of the Book of Odes.

His most famous teaching was the Golden Rule :

    Zi gong (a disciple of Confucius) asked: "Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?"
    The Master replied: "How about 'shu' [reciprocity]: never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?"

                        Analects XV.24, tr. David Hinton


In my Bible, there is one passage that really close to that :
Matthew 22:39 "And the second is like it:  ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself."


Confucius' principles gained wide acceptance primarily because of their basis in common Chinese tradition and belief. He championed strong familial loyalty, ancestor worship, respect of elders by their children (and, according to later interpreters, of husbands by their wives), and the family as a basis for an ideal government.

I grew up with Chow Yun Fat's movies like Shanghai Bund, Smiling Proud Wanderer as Linghu Chung (not everybody recognized the title, that's very old series of his), The God of Gamblers series, etc, etc to his role as Li Mu Bai in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Curse of Yellow Flower, Pirates of the carribean, until Now.

You may say I like him before he is famous like nowadays, he's one of my favorite Chinese movie star that turn to be really big. His role as Confucius made him work really hard. Because  he is a Cantonese speaker that had to be perfect with his Mandarin. Chow also had to learn ancient rituals and lose 4 kg. The make up took about two hour and a half each time. Chow admitted, when the director Hu Mei first gave him the script two years ago, he refused it, because the Confucius on that script was too young, but now after the script has revised and Confucius was made older, he can take it, "That was close to my age, I can handle it."

Who is Nan Zi ?

Nan Zi was the daughter of the monarch of Song State, and became the second wife of Wei Ling-Gong who was the monarch of Wei State. She was very beautiful, and she was dissolute. Wei Ling-Gong loved her profoundly, and satisfied all hopes of Nan Zi. Many people know that Nan Zi had a bad reputation, one day Confucius came to Wei State.

Nan Zi knew Confucius was a wise scholar and a skilled warrior. So she wished to meet him. She sent an emissary to invite Confucius and said, “The gentlemen of other states, who want to become brothers with our monarch, must visit our Xiaojun (The title of the wife of a monarch). Our Xiaojun is willing to meet you.” Confucius didn’t want to visit Nan Zi, because he knew the bad publicity of Nan Zi. But the emissary invited him again and again, and he thought if Nan Zi who was loved profoundly by the monarch of Wei State supported him and he could realize his great political ideals in Wei State. So he visited Nan Zi.

After the visit, there are some gossip about Confucius and Nan Zi. Zilu, a straightforward student of Confucius, wasn’t pleased. Confucius said, “Essentially I don’t want to visit her, but I had to visit her and only acknowledged the salute.” Zilu asked whether the gossips were true. Confucius answered, “If those gossips are true, the Heaven will desert me!”

Because Nan Zi could not have Confucius' heart she supports Confucius and treat him and his students very well. Her husband also welcome Confucius but he doesn't interested in the ideals of Confucius. One day, Nan Zi and her husband as very blatant, and many people pointed at Confucius. Confucius felt embarrassed. After this outing, Confucius said, “I have never seen a man who loves virtues as loves beauties.” Then he took his students to leave Wei State.

In 480 B.C., Kuaikui (son of Wei Ling Gong from the first wife) launched a rebellion. Nan Zi killed herself, and Zilu was killed. Confucius was very sad. In the next year, he died.