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ABSTRACT
In their adaptations of Hamlet, the two Chinese films, The Banquet and Prince of the Himalayas, present the protagonists' dilemma from a very different light and emphasizes the role of non-action in their exploration of self-worth and the objective truth. As a popular Taoist practice, wu wei, as prince Wu Luan clearly shows, allows one to achieve integration with primordial nature. In politics, it helps one govern in the most natural and unselfconscious manner. For the Tibetan prince, Lhamoklodan, the Buddhist meditation is key to attaining the truth. This deliberate non-action helps the prince to discover his lineage and reach spiritual awakening. Neither of the films gives non-action an unqualified endorsement, however. An uncritical observance of wu wei leaves one vulnerable in the political world; for Buddhism, violence is sometimes justified, insofar as it helps a would-be wrong-doer avoid the accumulation of further negative karma.
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Acknowledgement
The author would like to express his gratitude to Patrick Gray for his valuable feedback, which has been crucial in producing this article.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The main character’s individual agency barely contributes to the development of the plot, giving one a sense of mystification, that the story is pushed forward by some undetectable, unknownable, and inexplicable forces. But the protagonist’s inaction, as will be explained later, has much to do with the Taolist practice of wu wei.
2 Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, 159.
3 There are, of course, a few exceptions. Jim Casey and Walter S. H. Lim, for example, dwell upon the figure of the ghost, reflecting on its theoretical and regional dimensions and using it as a metaphor to show the impossibility of retrieving the original in adaptations. Casey, ‘I the Matter Will Reword’, 75; Lim, ‘The Ghost of Shakespeare’s Hamlet’, 161.
4 For this reading of strong female characters in the Chinese adaptations of Hamlet, see, e.g., Joubin, Shakespeare and East Asia, 17; Wu, ‘Three Hamlets, Two Gentlemen and One Time to Love’, 115 & 118; Burnett, Shakespeare and World Cinema, 147–8; and Burnett, Hamlet and World Cinema, 123.
5 Burnett, Hamlet and World Cinema, 13.
6 Tzu, Daodejing, 53.
7 Ibid., 89.
8 Ibid., 30.
9 Tzu, Vol. 7 of The Foundation of Chinese Esoteric Thought, 8.
10 Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, 115.
11 Aurelius, Meditations, 28.
12 Ibid., 11 & 28.
13 Hamlet, II. 2. 236–37.
14 Ibid., IV. 4. 31.
15 Ibid., I. 5. 108.
16 Ibid., I. 5. 170, I. 3. 58,
17 Tzu, Daodejing, 43.
18 Ibid., 77.
19 Ibid., 161.
20 Ibid., 63.
21 Ibid., 67.
22 Parkes, ‘Nietzsche, Panpsychism and Pure Experience’, 87–102 (96).
23 Tzu, Daodejing, 67.
24 Historically, the Qin dynasty ended the Warring State period and became the first dynasty of imperial China not by embracing Taoism but instead but by promoting Legalism.
25 Cited in Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, 498.
26 Freud, Totem and Taboo, 106.
27 Heath, Tibet and China in the Twenty-first Century, 81.
28 Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory, 240.
29 Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, 500.
30 Morris, Religion and Anthropology, 51; see also Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism, 47.
31 See the prince’s glorification of the dead king and denigration of the present one in the closet scene.
32 Lama XIV and Carrière, Violence and Compassion, 53.
33 A great example of Christ-like compassion can be found when Jesus wept along with Mary and Martha over Lazarus’ death.
34 On the Buddhist meditation and the four immensurables, see Vetter, The Ideas and Meditative Practices of Early Buddhism, 26–8; Bodhi, ed., A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, 89–90.
35 Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, 65.
36 Cited in Schlieter, ‘Compassionate Killing or Conflict Resolution?’ 131–57.
37 Hamlet, IV. 4. 63.