Mongolism

"Mongolism quotes the plot of a Chinese fictional historical soap opera, Princess Pearl. It is told that Xiang Fei, the princess of the West Region, had an innate charming fragrance. In order to maintain peace among countries and regions, she gave up her own affection and was taken to live in the emperor's palace in Beijing.

The native soap operas address subjects such as myths, national religions, historical themes, war and love, from soup to nuts. They are prevalent, popular and have always been the topic of conversations after the petit-bourgeois' dinners.

In this work, I try to uncover experiences and emotions forgotten by people, and to combine them with reality. At the same time, I attempt to mirror cultural psychology and, through metaphors, aesthetic needs of the contemporary society. I mostly try to highlight the characters’ emotions that I expect audiences will pay close attention to, because I always believe that human emotions are the most real thing in any kind of social environment; they are like mirrors that reflect all kinds of social phenomenon.

I film in accordance with the actual conditions of the shooting environment, allowing the film’s narrative to be freer. Thus, while filming Mongolism, I wanted it to be more real, so I avoided consulting a script.

China is developing at full speed and it is hard to find an invariable truth in such context. You see changes, destruction and rebirth. Contemporary Chinese people have a rigid demand for historical imagination, which makes them disappointed about the present and suspicious of the future."

Tao Hui in a statement to PLATFORM:VB (October 2013)