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Figure 7: The pair Zhang Jun (played by Liang Jingdong) and Zhong Ping (played by Yang
Tianyi) in Platform (2000)
way, the performers’ actual outsider identities may make them more easily
identifiable with their characters, who seem eager to break loose from the
“isolated” local town. Still, to a large extent this discrepancy between the
actors’ actual dialects and the protagonists’ supposed dialects is at odds
with the filmmaker’s emphasis on cinematic verisimilitude, especially when
compared with his meticulous treatment of minor characters’ accents or
dialects. Besides the dominant Fenyang Mandarin spoken by the real local
residents in the films, most of the outsider accents of the minor characters
could be reasonably explained away. For instance, the bar escorts in Xiao
Wu speak Northeast or Sichuan Mandarin, and in fact, prostitutes usually
do business in places other than their hometowns; the bar boss in Xiao Wu
and the troupe leader in Platform speak Putonghua with a strong Beijing
accent, which is consistent with their identity as sent-down youths from
Beijing; in Platform, the Fenyang Rural Culture Troupe, which is privatized
and repackaged as the “Shenzhen All-Star Break Dance Electronic Troupe,”
advertises its tour performance with an imitation of a Cantonese accent.
Jia Zhangke’s response to such “flawed” linguistic authenticity is that
Modern Chinese Literature and Culture • 177
MCLC 18.2.indd 177
12/20/06 2:01:37 PM