Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

f-03024 I love this movie, but the English sub, are the translaters kidding me? It's the best Chinese movie. Good performance of actors, remarkable presentation of relations and emotion, and the most precious, the culture throughout long history of China and 1950s Chinese politics portrayed by the fate of heroes. This movie mixed love, culture, fate and history, they're so indivisable that I feel shocked and touched. Here's no spoilers. but you may need to know some about Chinese past and opera story before you watch it the second time and start to feel it. I've watched it 4 times.

SnoopyStyle It's 1977 Beijing and things are better. In 1924, Shitou is the lead boy in Master Guan's performing troupe in Beijing. Laizi tries to run away but fails. A mother from the brothel tries to leave her son with Guan but he refuses because of an extra finger. In desperation, she chops off his extra finger. They call him Douzi. It is a tough existence of brutal beatings and rigorous training. Years later, Laizi and Douzi run away. Douzi is so entranced by an opera performance. He becomes determined to take as many beatings as needed to be a star. They return to the troupe. Douzi willingly takes the beatings but Laizi hangs himself. Shitou and Douzi become close with Shitou taking the male roles and Douzi taking on the female roles. Shitou gets engaged to manipulative Juxian causing a rift between the duo. The story is rich. It is original. The acting is terrific. It is compelling. It is a long movie but it's an epic from another era. It's engaging from start to finish.

p-seed-889-188469 I have had a great deal of trouble writing this review. Every time I make a start I can find nothing to get my teeth into and no coherent thread to interconnect my thoughts. While there are many potential sub-topics they all seem to stand in isolation. While this may simply be a reflection of my inability to string two sentences together I think in this case it pretty accurately summarizes the issues I have with this movie.It is difficult to figure out what this movie is and if asked to summarise it in 25 words or less I would be flummoxed. Is it a Chinese history movie? An opera movie? A Chinese culture lesson? A love story? A story of betrayal? A story of pseudo or actual homosexuality? It is snippets of all of these and probably more, but it does not really do justice to any of them. Basically it suffers from multiple personality disorder and unfortunately we don't get enough time with any of them to relate to any of them. Yes, the history and cultural aspects are interesting in their way but don't really add anything to our understanding of the horrors of the Japanese invasion of China, the Nationalist/Communist struggle, the early Communist era and the later Cultural Revolution. Yes, it is a "love story" between the two actors who play the King and the Concubine, but we never experience any passion or come anywhere close to connecting to either of these characters to really care. The "King" character in particular is very undeveloped, little more than a cardboard cut-out who happens to be the object of the "Concubine's" unrequited love. The character played by Gong Li is also skin deep and we never really care about her or her relationship with the "King" actor – indeed the random and non-sensical way in which these two characters become engaged simply nukes any credibility that this relationship might have had, and by extension destroys the credibility of any other relationship on the movie, most importantly the pivotal one between the "King" and the "Concubine". The betrayal, which I gather meant something personal to the director, is dealt with too curtly to have any effect at all. The character of the "son", raised from an abandoned baby, is totally illogical and we simply don't get to know him well enough to care about him or understand why he would possibly want to betray his adoptive parents. It all just seems facile and silly. We never really understand (or at least, I don't) the "homosexual" overtones of the "Concubine". Was he simply beaten into a form of insanity in which he thinks he is always in character as a woman? Is he actually a homosexual? His "king" friend seems to be too thick to understand the "Concubine's" feelings for him and this to me trivializes the whole "affair". And to be honest, none of the characters come across as being particularly nice, in fact the Concubine character comes across more as a petty, whinny, jealous, lightweight flake than a tragic figure we could weep for.OK, just because a film is not perfect doesn't mean you should not watch it. "Farewell My Concubine" is one of those films which is a "must see" despite its failings. If it falters as an emotionally satisfying and coherent movie it is a stunning technical tour de force and a masterpiece of its kind. Just to have made a movie of this scope is an achievement, almost to the point that its success is secondary, crazy as that may sound. It is a movie of such breadth that it is impossible to take in completely in one sitting, and that is perhaps the ultimate test – you know you need to see it again to understand it but can you care enough about it to make that effort? But – trust me - you need to see this movie – your education as a movie goer is incomplete unless you do. You will enjoy it, and you will be moved to have an opinion, one way or the other.

sdjkjkjkjkjk There is no doubt that this is a great movie. You could check out the awards it won. I just want to mention that the main hero of this movie is Leslie Cheung who is my favorite singer.One of his great song is When Love Fades Away（in Chinese Dang Ai Yi Cheng Wang Shi)that is the theme song of this movie. If you are interested in this song, you might as well give it a try. Well, it's a mandarin song, but as the saying goes" Music knows no boundary between countries".You might be impressed by the emotion it expresses. Besides, the following songs sung by Leslie are also great if you I want to know more.Silence is golden(Chen Mo Shi Jin)、In My Life Time(Jin Sheng Jin Shi)、Blamefully Beautiful（Guai Ni Guo Fen Mei Li)、The One Who Doesn't Want To Hold Me（Bu Xiang Yong Bao Wo De Ren)