Alum’s biographical drama qualifies for Academy Awards
Robin Wang’s short, “Neither Donkey Nor Horse,” earned a Sloan Foundation grant.
By TAI LYN SANDHU
It is 1910. The Great Manchurian Plague rages through China, and Dr. Wu Lien-teh is determined to find a cure for the disease. This is the courageous, true story of “Neither Donkey Nor Horse,” a biographical drama short film directed by School of Cinematic Arts alum Robin Wang.
On Sept. 17, “Neither Donkey Nor Horse” was announced as one of the 2024 Student Academy Award winners, automatically qualifying for the Academy Awards. Made possible by receiving an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant given to STEM-oriented student art projects, the film follows Dr. Wu (Chris Pang), whose relatively unknown story of bravery and ingenuity influenced the protective measures against the coronavirus that scientists and doctors devised in 2020.
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Wang’s film navigates the clash of tradition and modern medicine, Eastern and Western societies, and duties to oneself and one’s home. The most striking aspect of the film is its ability to live within these overlaps seamlessly. This ambiguity is directly reflective of Wang as a person, the director and co-writer of the film — he floats between ideas and worlds.
Wang, who has lived in Singapore, China and the United States, sees these so-called gray areas as foundational to his voice as an artist. Before directing the film, he won Outstanding Comedy Series at the 2023 College Television Awards for his film “Wei-Lai” (2022), which follows a young Chinese boy who asks a white family to adopt him.
The show’s tone is dichotomous to “Neither Donkey Nor Horse,” which is a classical period drama. To Wang, though, he sees the two works in conversation with each other and as an exploration of himself, caring less about specific styles and more about themes.
“I was drawn to [“Neither Donkey Nor Horse”] because it’s also about the same kind of spiritual homelessness that [Wei-Lai] struggled through, that he was caught in between these two worlds but can call neither of them his home or his community and the truth was caught in between a very otherwise polarized world,” Wang said.
Even the title “Neither Donkey Nor Horse” — an idiom originating from a book on the history of Chinese medicine — draws attention to something that cannot be so easily categorized. In the film, a Chinese traditional doctor proclaims that Dr. Wu is “neither donkey nor horse.”
In real life, Dr. Wu was born in Malaysia, studied in England and relocated to China (his parents’ birthplace) to fight the disease. He faced prejudice from those who taught him, and he was disdained by those from his home because of his Westernized medicinal technique.
“There’s so much truth about human society that doesn’t belong to the East nor the West,” Wang said. “It belongs to everybody.”
Wang, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Duke University before getting his Master of Fine Arts at the School of Cinematic Arts, is also a student of the story he is telling. He came across the source material during a gap year in China during the lockdown and returned to Harbin — where the story takes place — while in preproduction.
The significance of the period the film takes place in, he said, is that it was a time in China when the country was transitioning from a dynastic society to a brand-new relationship with the West, abruptly and with little preparation. China is at a similar place in its long history now with its shift to rapid growth post-Cultural Revolution, becoming the second-largest economy in the world in 2010.
Wang also described how he got his friend in medical school to smuggle him into a lab to watch a cadaver to direct the actors on how to properly perform the procedure that occurs in a pivotal scene in the film.
“Sometimes [science] manifests itself in something as conducive as particles or as crude as a very simple and humble face mask,” said Wang. “Truth manifests itself in all kinds of shapes and forms. As human beings, there’s always this humility that we should carry towards our world, our society, in terms of how much that we don’t know.”
One of the film’s producers was Ellen Eliasoph, best known for expanding Warner Brothers into the booming Chinese market and now founder of Starry Dome Productions.
“There are current, real difficulties between China and the rest of the world in terms of people having a lot of preconceptions and a lot of prejudices, and there’s just a lot of conflict,” Eliasoph said. “Whether it’s health, whether it’s technology, whether it’s climate change — the biggest questions in the world right now have to be solved with good communication between China and the West. This story shows how that can happen.”
“Neither Donkey Nor Horse” has just started the festival circuit at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. It is currently in the early stages of development for a mini-series adaptation, and on Oct. 14, it was announced as a Bronze medalist at the 51st Academy Awards held in London.
“It was sort of surreal,” said Jesse Aultman, co-writer and producer. “You have hopes and aspirations for films, obviously, as you’re making them … For us as students, the Student Academy is kind of like the highest aspiration.”
Wang emphasized that “Neither Donkey Nor Horse” aims to challenge audiences’ biases about the coronavirus pandemic.
“Audiences have all kinds of preconceptions of what they think about [COVID-19] … It already carries biases, good or bad. So that’s what we don’t want,” Wang said. “The story is really about seeking truth in humanity’s darkest hours … the truth that lies in between. Our goal is that we really want to connect on a very human level.”
