Feng yue

I watched this movie on the T.V. and I think if I had seen it in a theatre I would have rated it higher than 7. It is a fascinating story, beautifully told. The atmosphere created was wonderful. The story is tragic. The early childhood of Zhongliang was horrifying, as was the life led by the Pang family,addicted to opium; the cruelty shown him by his sister and brother-in-law truly shaped Zhongliang's character. Part of the movie is set in Shanghai in about the 1920's seemed real. It is a sad tale of corruption and cruelty.

This was an interesting movie.

This is a tale of tragic romance, where the male character is an emotional wreck (due to him being a slave for his sister and her husband, who also forces him to have a little experience with incest), and the female character is living her day in an opium cloud.

The acting from the main actors is top notch, namely Leslie Cheung and Li Gong, who always seem to deliver in every movie I have seen them in (Li Gong struggles a bit in her English speaking roles, and it does take something away from her performance in those movies, I must admit). Li Gong usually plays an intelligent character, but here she is an opium addict, so it is definitely different seeing her looking all confused and dumbfounded all the time.

The cinematography was spectacular, as it usually is when Christopher Doyle is in charge. The lighting and camera angles reminded me a little of David Lynch, and I believe it was done this way in order for you to see the world like you had smoked opium, just like the characters. You should see the movie for the acting, cinematography and camera work alone.

The main critique of the movie seems to be that it is very hard to follow the plot and figure out who is who. I agree with this. It gets established 40 min or so into the movie, but you could be tempted to turn off the movie before that because it is so confusing. But once it gets established who is who, and what they want, the plot becomes a lot better, and I became very involved in the movie.

When I rented this after reading the pitiful, typically over-sensualized box, I hoped only that it might struggle above tepid mediocrity in some way. In fact, I saw it and despised Leslie Cheung's petty Songlian and his sister Caifei He for the first hour.

Yet then I began to realize how intricately woven the characters and plot were as visual symbols began reappearing, and the movie began to happily shirk off introductory pretenses and reveal the forces behind the characters and their actions. Songlian's pettiness began to reveal itself as an intense and justifiable self-hatred, and that of his sister as terrible hopelessness. Meanwhile the others in the movie undergo powerful transformations as well, as we see how people struggle to bring their own beliefs to bear beneath the tidal wave of external circumstances. We see how they fail, and how their failure propogates their weaknesses, undermining others.

Overall we see the power of the subversive as it plays on the human mind and heart. We see beliefs destroyed at several levels, we see new beliefs emerge, less pure and more calculating. We see regret unfold in each of the characters, or worse, cold numbness to it from enduring too much.

And there is nothing to regret about the movie, except that the subterranean depths of the content make recommendation difficult (this is not a movie for most grandmothers, even though it is still delicate in how it examines its touchier subject matter). Still, it is beautiful in everything it does. The sights, the characters, the transformations, even the twistiness. We rever the characters and their changes, for good or worse because we understand them irrevokably. The movie is highly rich and interwoven. Elements interplay even down to recurring symbols, and by the end we realize that the entire movie is really symbolized in the first ten minutes, even though there is no way we could realize that from the beginning even if told so. Those ten minutes where we see the beautiful Pang estate, and the children, and life so revoltingly innocent at first glance. That is purposeful. What we take for inconsequential initially is proved to be far from it, and really that contrapuntal layering of pretended motive and deeper meaning continues throughout.

Every minute in this movie counts. Every side glance reflects meaning. "The Piano" was supposed to be subversive, sensual, touching and powerful, showcasing how the heart must contend with external harshness. However, it is clumsy, ugly, blatant, and ineffectual in comparison to "Temptress Moon" which tells so much more with so much less, and it breaks our heart unspeakably, but is above the painful, selfish bitterness or wallowing found in "Farewell My Concubine", "Raise the Red Lantern", and "Indochine" which really tell stories half as complex (maybe not Indochine). The characters in Temptress Moon are noble, despite and because of their outer twistedness and rent hearts.

A sumptuous earring, a swinging lamp, fresh roses, Songlian's longings for Peking, and twisting opium smoke and speeches on its merits and cruelties-- all these symbols snake by at first, yet come to how powerful meaning in the end, and they strike us at many levels in the movie, each time richer with understanding. I left far surprised and impressed. Finally, a movie great enough to express itself in humility of pretenses. If only they'd ditch the stupid and coarsely sensual box.

Another exorcism by Chinese master Chen Kaige (who directed "Farewell My Concubine" three years earlier), of China's disastrous meltdown in the early 20th Century. An old landed family sinks into decadence as the Qing dynasty collapses and the chaotic early years of a Chinese republic swirl around their ghostly ancestral hall and mansion gardens.

Into this scene returns an extended-family member, Zhongliang (played by Hong Kong star Leslie Cheung), ostensibly to position himself for his Shanghai gang's takeover of the estates. But Zhongliang's return home awakens old wounds and rips open all new ones in a family reeling from generations of drug use and the collapse of an ancient civilization.

Cousins, brothers-in-law, sisters, then become embroiled in a sick game of love, lust, and revenge. This is a very sobering film yet hauntingly beautiful at times. All performances, from a radiant Gong Li, down to the smallest roles, are superb. The character development is profound, the story compelling, and the production values are stunning. A first rate movie.

I decided to purchase Temptress Moon after viewing the breathtaking, and devastating, Farewell My Concubine. Both movies feature the amazing talents of Gong Li and Leslie Cheung. So total is their transformation between the two films, it's difficult to believe that these are the same actors.

While Concubine served as a historical epic, Temptress Moon seemed more along the lines of Shakespearean tragedy. Like Kaige's previous work, the characters' frustrations signify larger themes: domestic turmoil; gender repression; class conflict; etc. Although these themes concern the private sphere of life and are not as overtly political as those addressed in Concubine, they are just as much about power, its abuse and the resulting disfigurement of the human spirit.

Temptress Moon is by no means a romance. The movie succeeds in being lyrical and melancholy - more engrossing than entertaining. Despite the requisite tragic ending, I found the plot to be oddly satisfying! The waxing and waning fates of Zhongliang, Ruyi, and Duanwu intertwined to create a luminous study of the heart and its insatiable hunger.

Overall, Temptress Moon was a clear reflection of the obsessions that ruthlessly dictate interpersonal affairs. Leslie Cheung, Gong Li and Kevin Lin give mesmerizing performances while supporting portrayals like that of Caifei He as Zhongliang's sister and Yin Tse as Zhongliang's Boss are equally flawless. (Among the movie's many moral messages: "Don't Do Drugs!" :)