l of roles, Nine is now the one who is startled by this bold gesture of desire as she withdraws her foot into the sedan, her own feelings aroused. On Nine's nuptial night, she presumably protects herself from Big Head Li's advances with her scissors. The assumption is implied rather than stated through a series of evocative images. The scene begins with the image of a terrified Nine in her red wedding dress, crouched in a corner of the room clutching the pair of black scissors to her chest. Beside her is a pile of red wedding quilts lit by the glow of two oil lamps. The rustling of bedsheets in another corner of the room indicates the presence of her husband, whom the audience never sees. This is followed by a serene image of the moon shining above the distillery's distinctive landscape -- a rock formation in the shape of an arch perched high on the dusty hill which marks the entrance to the premises of the distillery. For the night scenes which are shot outdoors, Zhang uses blue filters to evoke a fairytale landscape. In this image, the blue filter is in sharp contrast to the red imagery of the previous shot, endowing the landscape with a mythical quality and an atmosphere of quiet and lyrical melancholy. The next image shifts to the dark interior of the distillery workers' room. The men are asleep except for Luohan who is still awake and smoking a water pipe. The gurgling of the water in the pipe is the only sound that can be heard in the house. Suddenly, from another room, a woman's scream pierces the quiet night, startling the men from their sleep. It takes only a moment for them to identify the cause of the scream; unable to do anything to protect Nine from the leper's conjugal right, the men return to slumber. Sitting at a table, Luohan reflects in silence before extinguishing the night lamp. In this short scene, nothing appears to have happened, yet the atmosphere is heavy with unspoken tragedy and resignation. Zhang's use of sun...
