Unidentified Photo at Shenhua's House

[Switch]

Where might this be? This mysterious photograph was hiding among the mirror plans at Shenhua's house in Shenmue II.


I've made a post on it here, with images of the key documents left by Shenhua's father relating to the mirrors:

https://www.phantomriverstone.com/2022/04/unidentified-photo-in-shenhuas-house.html

It would be neat to identify this location. It looks like a digitized photo of an actual place.

 

[Seaman]

It would be neat to identify this location. It looks like a digitized photo of an actual place.

To be honest, the picture it's too lowres to assure it's a photo rather than a detailed drawing. Moreover there's some horizontal patterns suggesting hand trace or it could be, falling at your side, a photo turned to sepia and with a scratches overlay to simulate hand-drawing. As I write, it comes to be more obvious the latter... also makes sense, during Yu's China trip a lot of photos were taken for capturing the game mood so it's very logic and less time consuming than drawing from scratch to take some of the stock footage and convert it to prop pictures with few photoshop clics. Yes, it has to be that.
So for my grain of sand, the first thought is that's a real place in China I see:
- Roman architecture style arches?
- unidentified columns
- unidentified trees
- unidentified structure at center of image. I can't figure if this structure its:
a) attached to the dark construction/grass from the floor, being a fountain
b) embedded into the arch-wall like some kind of altar, and the thing in the floor is a trail leading to it.
Also, this tower-like structure ends on its top with a cocoon silhouette which reminds me more persian/indonesian than chinese... but Im far of being an architecture expert. I mean, I can see indian temples and say "Oh that looks persian".

edited again because it was a mess:
At first, that white round form on it puzzled me "it's a clock?? in a fountain or altar?
suddenly I see it clear: it's the space between the legs of a human figure statue, with both arms raised over its head and on top of a pedestal. Maybe im biased but to me its clearly a path heading to a statue on top of a pedestal.
Yu Suzuki was about 10 yrs old when the kung fu movies madness took place in Japan with Lo Lieh and about 15 when Bruce Lee. I bet he mimicked a lot in front of the tv being a kid and probably went to some iconic locations in those movies when at his China trip.
Epic places like Devil's Peak appeared in many different movies like that one of Jackie Chan and iirc one starring Hwang Ing Shik in main role.

You do an excellent work and i love phantom blog.

 

[code l name]

Another interesting revelation as usual @Switch!

Although not accurate, my brain immediately went to this scene in the original Project Berkley trailer-


However I think the comment in our article perhaps is more accurate perhaps?

"Dharani pillars were usually erected outside Buddhist temples, and became popular during the Tang dynasty (618–907)."

 

[Seaman]

The rounded arches are present at Luoyang and other places in Henan province. It could be perfectly be the fountain pillar but I still seeing a humanoid figure in maybe a fighting postition, like the bronze sculptures over shaolin temples. not the modern post-movies ones but the early dynasty ones

something like this but hands raised and on top of pedestal:

The three of them are from Luoyang and we can see a perfectly round arch here also at Luoyang (without the columns though)

Im not saying naah its not the pillar, its my version 100%... the picture is too blurry to bet on. Anyway lets keep in mind Shenmue scenarios are adaptations, it could pick things from different places and arrange a new imaginary place. Thats why I mentioned Devil's Peak because being unrelated to Kowloon it evokes some of the street fight rings (star point and those) which wasn't really there. But I'll be with a path into a shaolin temple with a statue guarding it.

 

[Switch]

also makes sense, during Yu's China trip a lot of photos were taken for capturing the game mood so it's very logic and less time consuming than drawing from scratch to take some of the stock footage and convert it to prop pictures with few photoshop clics.

I agree, it may well be somewhere Yu visited on his China trip, or even one of his own photos (we know he visited Luoyang, although that was just one of the many spots on his itinerary).

The rounded arches are present at Luoyang and other places in Henan province. It could be perfectly be the fountain pillar but I still seeing a humanoid figure in maybe a fighting postition, like the bronze sculptures over shaolin temples. not the modern post-movies ones but the early dynasty ones

Ah, I can see what you mean about it looking like a human statue with arms raised up above the head. Once seen, it's hard to unsee! That's a definite possibility.

However I think the comment in our article perhaps is more accurate perhaps?

Dharani pillars are something that are new to me, but the similarity of the shape is definitely compelling! Especially with the mention of the Tang dynasty - maybe a coincidence, but Shenhua also mentioned this era in relation to Luoyang.

Thank you for your thoughts and theories, @Seaman and @code l name ! I love the way the Shenmue community is always ready to jump on board and help dig into such details.

 

[Switch]

I think we may have a break-through on this mystery photo location!

In another thread, @Arinar gave some interesting background information about Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty. Included in his post was this photo of Puyi's residence in the city of Tianjin where he lived as a young adult.

Here is the photo from Shenmue again for comparison:

The features look remarkably similar: the trees, rounded arches, central pillar and basin. Horizontal fountain tiers can't be seen in this photo, but that could be explained by water spray covering them.

I believe this points to Shenmue's photo having been inspired by Puyi's former residence given the close similarity. Note: Yu Suzuki also passed through Tianjin during his 1994 China Research trip so it is entirely possible he visited the residence himself.

My guess is that it was included by the game's developers as a subtle link (an easter egg, almost) to Puyi as the one who commissioned the Mirrors, something we do not learn until later in Shenmue 3. While Puyi did not move to this residence until later in life - and it was not built until later - perhaps in the game it was intended as a non-specific image to represent the child emperor's imperial residence.