Feng Xiaogang, arguably the most popular director in China today, demonstrates convincingly that in his first attempt at the "historic epic" genre (loosely termed), he has outclassed the two veterans best known to the rest of the world, Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige who, by trying too hard to impress and please, have courted backlashes. Zhang's pretentious "Flying dagger" has become a bit of a laughing stock and Chen's elaborated "Wu ji", while not as disastrous, has failed to be convincing.
Feng avoided these fatal mistakes by keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground. While he starts with a clear message that he is second to none in the fancy stuff department, with two spectacular sequences (which I'll come back to), he did not get carried away as the other two directors, and comes back firmly to the story and the characters.
The story is what I would call quasi-history and is a very clever move. While there is definitive reference to the rather chaotic historical period after the Tang Dynasty (the "decaying Tang" or "five dynasty, ten nations" period as known in Chinese history), the movie is intentionally vague on where exactly the story happened. For all intent and purposes, it's a fictitious nation. There's the cleverness, of getting the better of both worlds having the air of authenticity and yet avoiding completely any possible criticism of distorting historical facts.
VERY loosely, there is a Hamlet plot, sort of. We do have an indecisive prince (Daniel Wu) finding himself in the predicament of his uncle (Ge You) murdering his father and taking over both the crown and the queen (Zhang Ziyi). But here, the queen is not the biological mother, but a former adolescent sweetheart (4 years younger) that his father took away. Perhaps to ease his son's pain, the king (now murdered) made a match for him with lovely and devoted maid-of-honour Qing (Zhou Xun).
This would be the place to bring up an interesting point. Purportedly, the role of the queen was initially offered to Gong Li, who declined because of other engagements. Had it been Gong, she would have to play someone 4 years younger than Wu. This leads me to speculate that maybe we had originally a closer Hamlet plot in which Gong would be Wu's real mother. It was then changed because Zhang playing Wu's mother would be just as unconvincing as Gong playing his young ex-lover. If that is really what happened, the plot suffers in that the love story between the prince and Qing has become less "pure" and sympathy-worthy.
There is no question that the queen is the main character, the opening credit of Zhang's solo billing betrays as much. She is relentlessly scheming, overmatching even the king (the reigning one, that is, her ex-brother-in-law) hitting him at a spot that is every man's Achilles' heel, by telling him that he can give her something that he brother wasn't able to (and she may well be very honest about it, judging from what we see in the erotic scenes). But, there are more facets to the queen than just the ruthless survivor. There's the ambitious power-monger and there's the vulnerable young lover, just to name two. Zhang has come a long way from the wooden, angry, rebellious young damsel which has been her single-expression, over-simplified persona. In "Banquet", she begins to show subtleties and variations that we have never seen in her before. Although I must confess that in Zhang's scene throughout the movie, I couldn't help that if-only-we-have-Gong subconscious, in all fairness to Zhang, she has come off rather well with this difficult challenge.
Daniel Wu suffers by comparison, but manages to deliver an art-loving, introvert prince that is reasonably believable. And I must give Ge due credit for resisting the easy temptation to overacting the usurping brother (or uncle, or brother-in-law, depending on who's talking), making the role more of a real flesh-and-blood human being than a stereotyped bad guy. The darling of the movie is obviously Qing - pure, innocent (but not naïve), devoted, defiant portrayed to perfection by Zhou. There are two other important characters, Qing's father the minister (Ma Jingwu) and brother the general (Huang Xiaoming).
The movie opens with a most exquisite set, a three-dimensional arena-cum-stage where the self-exiled prince finds melancholic pleasure in perfecting his art in a Greek-type tragedy, complete with masks and all. Soon, this tranquil paradise becomes an infernal of bloody slaughters by the royal guards sent by his uncle to eliminate him. These are the two scenes I mentioned earlier, in which director Feng shows what he is capable of in the "artistic" department. But, as I said, he didn't indulge.
After a stunning opening, the movie gets back down to earth, telling a story in a simple, but effective way. The middle section could be considered slightly long, but is never dragging. The finale is sure-handed, punchy or poignant as the situation demands, and I particularly like the imaginative aerial shot framing an exquisite pattern of three dead bodies in white, black and brown and a living one in fiery red.
The music is also exquisite, beginning with Tan Dun's powerful orchestration. Most memorable is the haunting song of unfulfilled love that starts the movie and is echoed at the end, sung in a scene by Zhou in a way that deepens the pain tenfold. The original sound track has been advertised in town just as heavily as the movie. I expect to get one soon and will edit this comment if there's more to say after listening to it.
If you like Crouching Tiger, this is the movie to see. Forget about everything in between.
Feng avoided these fatal mistakes by keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground. While he starts with a clear message that he is second to none in the fancy stuff department, with two spectacular sequences (which I'll come back to), he did not get carried away as the other two directors, and comes back firmly to the story and the characters.
The story is what I would call quasi-history and is a very clever move. While there is definitive reference to the rather chaotic historical period after the Tang Dynasty (the "decaying Tang" or "five dynasty, ten nations" period as known in Chinese history), the movie is intentionally vague on where exactly the story happened. For all intent and purposes, it's a fictitious nation. There's the cleverness, of getting the better of both worlds having the air of authenticity and yet avoiding completely any possible criticism of distorting historical facts.
VERY loosely, there is a Hamlet plot, sort of. We do have an indecisive prince (Daniel Wu) finding himself in the predicament of his uncle (Ge You) murdering his father and taking over both the crown and the queen (Zhang Ziyi). But here, the queen is not the biological mother, but a former adolescent sweetheart (4 years younger) that his father took away. Perhaps to ease his son's pain, the king (now murdered) made a match for him with lovely and devoted maid-of-honour Qing (Zhou Xun).
This would be the place to bring up an interesting point. Purportedly, the role of the queen was initially offered to Gong Li, who declined because of other engagements. Had it been Gong, she would have to play someone 4 years younger than Wu. This leads me to speculate that maybe we had originally a closer Hamlet plot in which Gong would be Wu's real mother. It was then changed because Zhang playing Wu's mother would be just as unconvincing as Gong playing his young ex-lover. If that is really what happened, the plot suffers in that the love story between the prince and Qing has become less "pure" and sympathy-worthy.
There is no question that the queen is the main character, the opening credit of Zhang's solo billing betrays as much. She is relentlessly scheming, overmatching even the king (the reigning one, that is, her ex-brother-in-law) hitting him at a spot that is every man's Achilles' heel, by telling him that he can give her something that he brother wasn't able to (and she may well be very honest about it, judging from what we see in the erotic scenes). But, there are more facets to the queen than just the ruthless survivor. There's the ambitious power-monger and there's the vulnerable young lover, just to name two. Zhang has come a long way from the wooden, angry, rebellious young damsel which has been her single-expression, over-simplified persona. In "Banquet", she begins to show subtleties and variations that we have never seen in her before. Although I must confess that in Zhang's scene throughout the movie, I couldn't help that if-only-we-have-Gong subconscious, in all fairness to Zhang, she has come off rather well with this difficult challenge.
Daniel Wu suffers by comparison, but manages to deliver an art-loving, introvert prince that is reasonably believable. And I must give Ge due credit for resisting the easy temptation to overacting the usurping brother (or uncle, or brother-in-law, depending on who's talking), making the role more of a real flesh-and-blood human being than a stereotyped bad guy. The darling of the movie is obviously Qing - pure, innocent (but not naïve), devoted, defiant portrayed to perfection by Zhou. There are two other important characters, Qing's father the minister (Ma Jingwu) and brother the general (Huang Xiaoming).
The movie opens with a most exquisite set, a three-dimensional arena-cum-stage where the self-exiled prince finds melancholic pleasure in perfecting his art in a Greek-type tragedy, complete with masks and all. Soon, this tranquil paradise becomes an infernal of bloody slaughters by the royal guards sent by his uncle to eliminate him. These are the two scenes I mentioned earlier, in which director Feng shows what he is capable of in the "artistic" department. But, as I said, he didn't indulge.
After a stunning opening, the movie gets back down to earth, telling a story in a simple, but effective way. The middle section could be considered slightly long, but is never dragging. The finale is sure-handed, punchy or poignant as the situation demands, and I particularly like the imaginative aerial shot framing an exquisite pattern of three dead bodies in white, black and brown and a living one in fiery red.
The music is also exquisite, beginning with Tan Dun's powerful orchestration. Most memorable is the haunting song of unfulfilled love that starts the movie and is echoed at the end, sung in a scene by Zhou in a way that deepens the pain tenfold. The original sound track has been advertised in town just as heavily as the movie. I expect to get one soon and will edit this comment if there's more to say after listening to it.
If you like Crouching Tiger, this is the movie to see. Forget about everything in between.