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, Peking University). Zou Jingzhi retains a great deal of the storytelling talent of Chinese folk artisans. He is accustomed to vividly portraying the most ordinary daily life incidents—Xi Chuan (Poet). Cold yet warm, humorous yet sorrowful, vast yet meticulous, rough yet elegant—these are what I read and learned from Zou Jingzhi's scripts—Zhang Guoli (Actor).
The origin of The Night Banquet is the ancient Chinese painting The Night Banquet of Han Xizai. During the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Yu wanted to invite the former court minister Han Xizai to serve as prime minister. Han Xizai feared leaving a bad name in history, so he held nightly feasts, using revelry and debauchery to mask his inner fear and sorrow, and to evade the suspicion of Li Houzhu. Li Yu sent two painters to infiltrate Han's residence, secretly recording the scenes of the night banquet, which later became the painting The Night Banquet of Han Xizai. The opera The Night Banquet tells this story.
I Love Peach Blossoms is Zou Jingzhi's masterpiece in theater. The story is inspired by 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 sits down on a chair and falls asleep, but unfortunately, he sits on the lover's headgear. The lover signals to the wife to retrieve the headgear, but the wife misunderstands and takes the knife from the husband's belt instead, handing it over. The lover is startled, thinking this woman is so cruel, and stabs her to death with the knife.
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.