Full River Red

Zhang Yimou is the most famous Chinese director of all time, but even he cannot be sure to get away with social criticism after the clampdowns against Jack Ma, Hong Kong activists and CoVid critics. So what does a film maker do when he wants to address the frustration many of his compatriots feel? He resorts to satire, and sets the action comfortably far away in the past.

What starts out as a mystery concerning a missing letter no one must know quickly turns into slapstick comedy, and many viewers familiar with Zhang's epics feel let down by this because there isn't really any suspense. There are numerous twists and turns which seem haphazard and do not dive the plot forward. All the while the action is confined to the same palace grounds. It's totally understandable if this seems rather pointless and dull. And the Hamlet-like ending seems out of sync with the previous irony.

And yet, there is something beneath which only people familiar with authoritarian regimes will catch on to - the zeal of government officials to save their own skin with complete disregard to the task at hand. The characters constantly plot against each other and/or form allegiances to somehow emerge from the whole dilemma unscathed. It's mostly in vain because they are puppets of an invisible power - like in contemporary China, where no one can figure out the meaning behind the latest regulations, and where even the powerful thrive at the mercy of appearances. Even the title-giving poem, which could be seen as an allusion to Taiwan, is actually just another smokescreen for personal ambition.

If Zhang had made this into a straightforward mystery or wuxia, it could have been interpreted as subversive by the censors, but because it's farcical, it's all a joke so they can't. So even if the story is too convoluted and the black humor doesn't stick, it's probably still a breath of fresh air for many Chinese spectators and deserves its commercial success.

A rather slow and stagnant film in the first half, it was largely driven by charisma of individual actors. Also not helped by the monotonous setting of the film, which is just grey wall and grey sky throughout. But Full River Red quickly picked up steam as twists after twists and as the suspense grew. The movie has a powerful ending as Yue Fei's poem is recited, for which the film is named after. It is not hard to understand why the film had sub a great box office as it is truly a star studded lineup, but perhaps it is a little surprising that the film is more than what is shown on the surface. It is about struggle and standing up to power and desires while being told in a self deficating way.

What saves this story is the performance of the main cast. All actors play their roles passionately, and they are the only real strenght this movie has. The sets are limited but not holding back the movie.

The story is decently captivating. It starts as a whodunnit, that turns into a case of national security. Various factions are in the game, that don't know who to trust. Overall a gripping story, but it does get more nonsensical as it goes on.

The absolute worst part is the music, especially it's volume. Without exaggeration, the music is 10x as loud as the audio. I spent two hours holding the remote, ready to press mute. The music also fits the scenes it's played in poorly, but that would be forgiven if it was not 10x too loud.

I can read some of the comments on these reviews - firstly it is not for the person who don't appreciate layers and nuances of crafty human games. Those who like pure action or hong kong type of simpified plots will not appreciate this and will mark it as low score. However I suspect Zhang is painting on this broad canvass multiple themes with the underlying one on the geopolitics around China now, hence the hit in China with the masses there. That call to arms when they feel besieged by outside forces has a resounding clang from the recitation of the poem of the name of this film. The other reason is, China audience has a much deeper appreciation for their history and cultural reference - and these themes found in the movie has resonance with them.

You can see from his earlier works - where symbolism and the tapestry of how he structure his sets are now pared down to very basic backdrop. The pacing and the dialogue and all the twist and turns as he slowly introduce it while you peel the layers of intrigue built into the whole story. It is for the mature audience who has tasted the games in their worklife and being caught between two rocks - you can sympathise with the characters as they try to wit themselve out of the situation which we had experienced before in different guise in our lives - all through the film you try to keep an even keel whether this whole thing was planned or it was adapt as it go on - this is the feeling you develop as you keep watching.

The pacing was excellent, the music designed to be a merge of old and new is supposed to be jarring to create the dissonance between the different scenes and quicken the tension - everyone has an angle and it's like trying to keep an eye on where the ball is in one of the three cups as these are being moved around quickly. As the layers peel more and more, you can identify with the different characters, their motivations and positioning each of them working on - and it's like every single piece of chess is making their own moves on the board within their own confined rules - it is for this reason those who want more depth and layers to their movie watching will appreciate Zhang move to pare down to just basic simple set (not much of sets) and then all the focus is on the characters and the games they all have to play while the sword of death hangs over the two main characters and all those who fall into their orbit.

And at the end of the show - there was an actual final objective - just that there were many ways they had to adapt to finally reach that. And with that Zhang Yimou perform his coda elegantly bringing the symphony to an end. Chapeau Mr Zhang, chapeau !

This is a tough movie to get a hold of. The producers apparently described it as a suspense movie with comedic elements, but it is rarely either funny or suspenseful. I'd say it's in part a drama of intrigue, part a mystery, but mainly I'd call it a horror movie because it's got a brutal body count and many deaths are horrifically cruel.

In fact, for me what's most interesting about the movie is how well it portrays a world where the pecking order involves who can kill who, making life cheap as people use murder to impress or jockey for position. It's actually a good example of a systemic issue - it's a kill or be killed world and there's really no way out.

The story involves a murder investigation, at least at first, but there are all sorts of twists and turns along the way. It's convoluted and at times I got lost.

But finally at the end the central driving force of everything is revealed, and it made ZERO sense to me. I had to do a bunch of research to figure out the meaning. Full River Red is apparently a poem schoolchildren learn in China but if you don't know the poem or Chinese history then the denouement is incomprehensible.

I'm not saying this as a criticism - it's perfectly fine to make a movie that only makes sense to the people of the country it's made in. I'm just offering a warning that the ending may not resonate as well if you didn't grow up in China.

Overall, I liked Full River Red but didn't love it. It's genuinely engrossing. The cast is good, particularly Teng Shen and Wang Jiayi. The score by Hong Han is amazing, with all these crazy punk songs that I've read are rocked-out Chinese folk songs. But the weird genre stew, the unpleasant brutality, and the puzzling-until-you-research-it ending made it less enthralling than the best of director Yimou Zhang's films.