Rewatching Farewell My Concubine, I was moved just as deeply, even though the setting was different. Dieyi was truly tired. After enduring so much glory and upheaval, gaining and losing, then gaining again, he finally chose to end his life onstage. He had never been able to take control of his own life, drifting through it as if bound by fate. At last, in death, he became his own master. A perfect scene: Farewell My Concubine, never to be performed again. The lonely King of Chu was left behind. Perhaps life really is just a play. Love, parting, separation, resentment, hatred, and anger: it takes a bitter ending to bring them all to a close. Yu Ji died. Cheng Dieyi died. Leslie Cheung died. Onstage and off, truth and illusion, the result was the same.
Premise: Perhaps life really is just a play.
