Mei Lanfang

Accompanied by two girl mates, I went to watch Mei Lanfang. When "the end" showed on the screen, I found that both of them were crying. To be honest, I was a little bit confused at that moment--does it really worth the tear? Compared with Cheng Kaige's previous film "Wu Ji", "Mei Lanfang" is really a good movie, just good. It is not the first time for Cheng to make a film connected with Pecking opera. In 1993, his Golden Palm winning film" Ba Wang Bie Ji" really made the history. Althoug "Mei Lanfang" is a biographic film about the most famous Chinese Pecking opera actor, although it is more than 2 hours long, it failed to reach "Ba Wang Bie Ji"standard, just too slight.

Though I don't have much knowledge in Pekin Opera, this traditional Chinese art is enchanting to us. The first part of this film reminded us of Farewell to My Concubine (a film directed by Chen Kaige decades ago) as it's nearly an imitation of homosexual love. I had to agree with Tracy when she said the "great" director made "Broken Back Mount" again disguised in our traditional art form, a mundane story in a luxurious robe ( a bad metaphor or simile) . The background music is genial, triggering your memory for a film decades ago.Luckily, the appearance of Zhang Ziyi at the middle of the stage, in white robe halts the tune of love between two men. THe two lovers fall into love as planned, a mediocre plot again. But destine or fate or enthusiasm for art or unfair life get them close to each other but separate them later no matter how much gallantry artists show on stage or in life. Although it's featured by super stars, the protagonist fail to distinguish in continuous conflict of paradox, every role seems to have his or her own charm to trigger sympathy from the audience. I want to say Pekin Opera is a traditional art of long and glorious history with a galaxy of artists dedicated to it. Maybe it's true sometimes it is associated with hidden oppression on human emotion and thinking and manifest its extremism in aestheticism in seeming like abnormality of human being or sometimes the Pekin opera singers outdid themselves in rendition of blend of sentiments, however, the tremendous artistic beauty survives the deviation from authentic art.

THere was a lot that was new to me since it reflects a different culture, So I liked it.

I am really surprised by some of the negative reviews of this film. In my view this is to thoroughly underrate it. When I watched this on DVD, I did not know that it was directed by the same person who directed Farewell My Concubine (Kaige Chen) also seen on DVD quite a while ago. It is not the same film and it did not strike me as a weak regurgitation of FMC. The plot kept me engaged and it did not feel too long, in fact I would have liked to have known what happened afterwards. It is beautifully staged and the cinematography is excellent. How historically accurate the film is I'm not sure. If you read the Wikipedia article about Mei Lanfang, his love-life was rather more complicated (and productive) than portrayed. The major historical 'facts' I am sure are accurate. The portrayal of personal life, relationships and emotions must inevitably be more conjecture and some aspects have to be simplified. Nevertheless, I loved this film and it way exceeded my expectations. I also love Farewell My Concubine - in my opinion if you love that film you will most likely enjoy this one - though clearly other reviewers disagree!

The choice of Zhang's cast is not at all convincing, she is too short and tiny to play an emperor on stage with Lai.

Chinese opera is a lot more demanding artistically and physically compared to the Western one as each cast small or big requires to sing, dance, let alone performing using expressions such as eyes and fingers, and the highly acrobatic moves. Unfortunately, we didn't see much acting of hers in Forever Enthralled.

The actor playing the young Mei is excellent though and odd to be praised though. For films like this perhaps they are better off sticking to proper Chinese opera actors and actresses.