Manjianghong

The plot is told in the form of a double male lead in a fast-moving, ancient idol scripted secret room. I can appreciate the helplessness and hopelessness of the film's producers.

The short video-style comedy starring Shen Teng is the highlight of the film, and Yi Yiming Qianxi supports the vast majority of the main line and growth story, but it is clear that the character he plays is not doing well in the plot, which is the problem of the script, not the actor.

The cast is undoubtedly too strong in China, when scoring it is recommended to give the cast 6 points first, and then reduce the score according to other issues as appropriate.

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 !

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.

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.

Right, just watched it so it's fresh in my mind.

The sound design is probably the first thing the audience would notice. Every action, every scene is accompanied by a unique noise such as having gongs beaten on the slap of a fan, that, I wouldn't go as far as to say it is innovative but it is certainly rare to hear in most modern films. It essentially takes traditional Chinese theatre music and integrates them into the movie.

You've probably seen this film being listed as a comedy but by no means is this a comedy so don't be misled into thinking it'll be a Stephen Chow type thing. Sure there are some comedic elements to break the steam a bit once and a while but the seriousness of the movie is very well reflected throughout. Also, don't expect much action, this is not an action film. It works in the same way as a detective movie would go about.

And that leads me into the penultimate point. The unpredictability of every corner. Sure sometimes, going overboard with avoiding cliches can be detrimental at times but this is an instance where it remains impressively well thought out. There's a very clear crescendo that hits its climax at the very end so just know the tension will only keep rising whilst maintaining a good storytelling pace.

Mind you, you really need to keep track of what's going on or you are for certain going to lose grip on the story.

However, if there are a couple of critiscms to be made. The ending had room to be even more fleshed out, since at that point, everything happens really quickly and there's a weird unexplained twist that gets shoved in there without too much explanation. Furthermore, as good as the non-cliches are, it creates a pattern that you pick up pretty easily if you're focused enough.

My personal verdict on this movie comes as a 9/10. Highly unexpected for this year. I had not even heard of it before today in fact except reading on the background history of the time period of which this film is set in. There are few films in the past few years which has actually attracted my attention to write a review on it, and I'm glad that I've watched it and have been able to give my review.

Thank you.