Night: I love peach blossoms

Author: Zou Jingzhi
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-10-01
Features: The chill of pornography is refracted through the glint of the blade in I Love Peach Blossoms. I Love Peach Blossoms forges ice in fire and extracts fire from ice—Chen Jiaying (Director of the Department of Philosophy, East China Normal University). In the bustling urban atmosphere, Zou Jingzhi truly achieves a blend of elegance and popular appeal, a rare accomplishment among contemporary Chinese writers—Xie Mian (Professor of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University). Zou Jingzhi retains a strong storytelling talent from Chinese folk artisans. He is adept at vividly portraying the most ordinary daily life incidents with rich colors and flavors—Xi Chuan (Poet). Cold yet warm, humorous yet sorrowful, vast yet meticulous, rough yet elegant—these are the qualities I read and learned from Zou Jingzhi's scripts—Zhang Guoli (Actor).
The origin of The Night Banquet is the ancient Chinese painting Han Xizai's Night Banquet. During the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Yu wanted to invite the elderly minister Han Xizai to serve as the prime minister. Fearing a bad name in history, Han Xizai indulged in nightly feasts, using revelry and debauchery to mask his inner fear and sorrow, and to evade Li Yu the Successor's suspicion. Li Yu sent two painters to infiltrate Han's residence, secretly recording the banquet scenes, which later became the painting Han Xizai's Night Banquet. The opera The Night Banquet tells this story.
I Love Peach Blossoms is Zou Jingzhi's masterpiece in theater. The story's premise is derived from a small tale at the beginning of the fifth chapter of The World of Models. A drunk husband returns home early, forcing the wife, who is having an affair, to hide her lover. The husband falls asleep in a chair, but accidentally sits on the lover's headgear. The lover signals the wife to retrieve the headgear, but the wife misunderstands and takes the knife from the husband's belt instead. The lover is startled, realizing how ruthless this woman is, and stabs her to death with one strike.
From the perspective of feudal times, this story might still be seen as praising the lover's sense of justice. However, from a modern perspective, it may not be so straightforward. Under the framework of modern thought, Zou Jingzhi uses innovative theatrical techniques to subvert and reinterpret this story.