In 1988, when Chen Kaige attended the film festival, Feng Hsu took the initiative to meet him and made a special trip to see him with Lilian Lee Pik-Wah 's novel. After seeing him, he said that Chen Kaige must make such a movie. The ending in the old version of Lilian Lee Pik-Wah’s original novel is that Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou met in the bathroom in Hong Kong a few years later. They didn’t wear any clothes. They treated each other frankly, looked back on the past, sighed with emotion, and then went out. Go their own way. Chen Kaige told Lilian Lee Pik-Wah that this ending needs to be changed.
"Farewell My Concubine" focuses on the theme of human nature-infatuation and betrayal. Before writing, Chen Kaige emphasized to the two screenwriters that the characters must not be ideological. You should let them be who they are.
