The book has a wonderful opening as the movie titled Tiananmen is screened. The first screening will be at 7:30 in the morning for critics and film industry people at the Cannes film festival. The public premiere will be that evening. While all involved in the film are convinced it is a masterpiece all are anxious to find out the reaction of the critics.
In the movie Silvana is the mother of a young student demonstrator and Pang is a Chinese army general. They meet just outside the Square.
There is relief for Ava and Pang when they are told the critics stood and applauded at the end of the film.
In the evening the 2,300 in attendance rise to their feet at the end of the screening shouting the name of the director, Lau Lau.
The movie wins the Palme d’Or.
Mr. Mo Ming, the chairman of the China Movie Syndicate, has to approve every movie made in China and any foreign movie a distributor wants to show in China. He has a bitter history with Ava and Pang. He is furious with the movie and threatens all involved with the movie.
The Chinese government’s determination to quash any forms of information about what happened on Tinanmen Square includes the Syndicate.
A distributor is found but immediately problems arise with distribution.
Ava’s mentor, the late Uncle, comes to Ava in a dream and advises her not to poke the bear that is China.
Chinese security reaches outside China to detain Chen.
For someone as acute as Ava, she realizes late that the careful legal concealment of the funding of the movie by Three Sisters can all be undone if an insider, perhaps under torture, is questioned by Chinese security forces.
Ava’s negotiations are interesting for she can neither use violence nor the threat of violence to motivate the other side to agree to her terms. Her triad connections cannot help her. It is a pure negotiation with limited knowledge about the number the other side would accept to make a deal. I was reminded of Harvey Strosberg. He is a skilled Ontario litigator with the knack of determining the “magic number” that will make a deal work for both sides.
Ava is willing to have more flexibility than usual in her negotiations. She is determined to make the deal.
The last third of the book involves her determination to set aside a binding legal agreement in America. Ava has infrequently ventured into the United States.
The American dispute takes her into the American court system. Hamilton writes well about the court application. I will decline to discuss the legal weaknesses in his depiction of the legal action.
Ava’s scheming, done under the pseudonym of Jennie Kwong, is clever. Unfortunately, she is ignoring Uncle’s advice in favour of helping her friends and lover and satisfying her desire for a great movie telling the truth about China to be screened around the world.
As usual, Hamilton had me racing through the pages to find out what was going to happen in the entanglements concerning Tiananmen.
In recent books of the series the conclusions had been relatively straight forward. I found the ending of General Tiananmen totally unexpected. It was a cliff hanger that sent me searching the next day for the next book in the series. I had to know what happened next!
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That's such an interesting premise for the novel, Bill. It sounds as though it offers a look at the way the Chinese government works. It's also interesting that the book explores the legal ins and outs of film distribution as well as negotiations with government leaders. It's easy to forget how much behind-the-scenes work is involved in getting a film distributed widely, especially if it's a controversial film (or is seen that way).
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. Indeed, the Chinese government seeks to punish and restrict information. It reminds me of what Inspector Chen has experienced. I had little knowledge about the challenges of worldwide distribution of a film.
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