Thunderstorm (play)

Thunderstorm is a play by the Chinese dramatist Cao Yu.

Thunderstorm is undoubtedly the most popular dramatic Chinese work of the period prior to the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. It was first published in the literary magazine, Four Months of Literature, which was founded in 1934 by Chinese intellectuals, Zheng Zhenduo and Jin Yi. Shortly after its publication, a production of the play was mounted in Jinan, and later, in 1935, in Shanghai and in Tokyo, both of which were well received. In 1936, Thunderstorm debuted in Nanjing, with Cao Yu himself acting in the lead role. In 1938, following its theatrical triumphs, the play was made into two separate movies productions, one in Shanghai and another in Hong Kong, that were almost coincidental versions of one another. The latter production, made in 1957, co-starred a young Bruce Lee in one of his few non-fighting roles (Lei Yu, dir. Wui Ng). The 2006 movie Curse of the Golden Flower, directed and written by Zhang Yimou, sets the same play in the imperial courts of the late Tang Dynasty.

The plot of Thunderstorm centers on one family's psychological and physical destruction as a result of incest, as perpetrated at the hands of its morally depraved and corrupt patriarch, Zhou Puyuan. Although it is undisputed that the prodigious reputation achieved by Thunderstorm was due in large part to its scandalous public airing of the topic of incest, and many people have pointed out not inconsiderable technical imperfections in its structure, Thunderstorm is nevertheless considered to be a milestone in China's modern theatrical ascendancy. Even those who have questioned the literary prowess of Cao Yu, for instance, the noted critic C. T. Hsia, admit that the popularization and consolidation of China's theatrical genre is fundamentally owed to the first works of Cao Yu.