SmartShanghai | [SH101]: Madame Tussaud's

[SH101]: Madame Tussaud's

By Justin Fischer, May 10th, 2011 | In Activities

SH101 is an ongoing column on SmartShanghai, in which our writers actually visit tourists destinations in Shanghai we've all heard about, ignored, driven by, or thought about going to but never did. Until right now.

Odds are, you know the name. It hardly bears an explanation as to what it is: A gallery of glamorous fake people with nothing interesting to say, and no, I'm not talking about Bund nightlife. This is the legendary Madame Tussaud's House of Wax -- the Shanghai branch, the first in the mainland, opened back in 2006. We paid our first visit last week.

First, a little about Tussaud herself.

She got her start in waxworks in late the 18th in century France. Celebrity culture was in its nascent years, and as a wax worker, Tussaud was the closest thing there was to a paparazzo. Her memoirs feature some specious claims of brushes with French royalty, like a nine-year stint at Versailles where she forged wax likenesses of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the kids. Historians have since cast doubts on a lot of this stuff, but hey, who am I to let the truth get in the way of a good story?

Of course, by the late 1780s the monarchy began to fall out of fashion. Like any savvy celebrity hound, she shifted her sights to the next big thing: the French Revolution. Before long, her subjects were revolutionary heroes and thinkers, or tableaux of legendary occurrences like the death of Marat. She even claims to have rummaged through piles of dismembered heads of victims and cast death masks of them, which became emblems of the revolutionary cause.

Fast-forward to Shanghai two centuries later, the Tussaud test of popularity has been slightly recalibrated. Great thinkers, revolutionary heroes, and heads of state have largely been eclipsed by pop candy and sports stars. Her museums are more like giant 3-D issues of People Magazine that you can walk around in.

The first exhibit you encounter is a cocktail party. Everybody that's anybody is invited. Hey look! Over there by the bar. It's Andy Lau! I always thought he'd be taller in real life.

Performing onstage is the latest arrival to the party, Lady Gaga (you can tell she just got there because her cheeks aren't smudged with the dirt of a thousand unwashed hands).

Leering at her from the VIP room in back is Madonna. Look closely at her face. The artist has masterfully captured the bitterness of being a pre-menopausal sex symbol standing at the precipice of relevance. And that expression. You can sense that she wants to scratch Gaga's eyes out. You can almost hear her shrieking, "Bitch, that pointy bra thing is mine!"

Next stop: The Situation Room, where Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama square off in a staring contest.

"Yes we can!"

"I must break you..."

You'll also find Slick Willy Clinton and Winston Churchill. Conspicuously absent, though, are the likes of Mao or any of his fellow cadres. If you want to see a waxen image of the Chairman, you'll either have to hit up the Mausoleum in Beijing or, go here.

Then there's this. This is where all the magic happens. Madame Tussauds has fashioned waxen android drones to make their statues. Here's one painstakingly at work on what looks like a severed head on the end of a pike.

...Kind of creepy. As is this...

Each of those little veins is painted delicately by hand.

At some point after that, you're at the Pepsi spectacular -- a fully-sponsored, underwritten, product-placed exhibit of every pretty-faced Asian pop poster-child the beverage company has emblazoned on its cans in the last few years. The only ones I could pick out from the lineup were Rain, Jolin Cai, and Louis Koo. Each personage is decked out in some kind of futuristic, sci-fi blood sport costume that's coordinated with Pepsi's corporate color scheme. This guy wielding what I can only assume is some kind of blue energy sphere is my favorite. I'm not sure what his name is, but I think he sang that chart-topping hit from a few summers ago titled "Baby, Give Me Your Heart and I'll Carry Your Handbag For You."

So. Is it worth it? Well, I suppose that all depends. There are some eerily accurate renderings in here. The craftsmanship and the eye for detail are nothing short of spectacular. But 135rmb is a steep price tag. And I haven't decided if I should be insulted by the 30rmb rebate they give you that's only valid at their Hong Kong branch. However, if you must go, pull a sicky and go during the week. Saturdays and Sundays it's just a zoo.