Mei Lanfang

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

Chinese director Chen Kaige did the Chinese proud by directing Farewell My Concubine in 1993, which turns out to be the first Chinese film to receive an Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Features (1994) and brings home The Golden Palm Awards in 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

Farewell tells us a story of 2 Peking opera actors and the bond shared between both from the 1930's till the early 90's. Today, Chen wants to bring the magic back again, and here we have his latest feature, Forever Enthralled. Also known as Mei Lanfang in Mandarin, the film serves to be a tribute to the late Peking opera master, Mei Lanfang, who was not only well known for portraying female roles in the play, but also being the first Chinese actor to performed in America.

Sad to the say, the magic seems to fail despite placing lots of effort to bring the life story of the late Peking opera master to screen.

In a duration of 147 minutes, you will see the life of Mei in three stages: teenager, young adult in his 20's, and a more matured Mei in his 40's. Featuring Leon Lai as Mei in his adulthood and Sun Honglei as Qiu Rubai, the movie should be renamed as 'Mei Lanfang and Qiu Rubai - The Two Sworn Brothers'. This can be supported with Qiu Rubai attracted and bedazzled with Mei's skills in portraying a female role, which leads him to support Mei's career in various ways.

From the young Mei Lanfang competing with his actor grandfather, short romance with fellow actress Meng Xiaodong (Zhang Ziyi) after married to another fellow actress Fu Zhifang (Chen Hong), to how he refused to performed for the Japanese during World War 2, Qiu Rubai has always been with Mei Lanfang in all ways.

The main highlight of the film which keeps the audience going on for more will be the first 50 minutes of the film. A teenage Mei (Yu Shaoqun) was a famous actor, which makes him to go a path less traveled by changing the style in a Peking opera. The conflict between his grandfather and Mei shows how Mei wants to change the presentation of the opera, so as to live up to the words left by his great grandfather, where Mei is to bring Peking opera to a new level where actors gained their respects. By defying his grandfather's wishes and creates a new play, Mei has become more famous than ever, which leads him to his stardom for the next few decades.

This is the only part of the story that really lives up to the title. The moment Mei reaches adulthood, the story has fall flat, unfortunately. Even when Chen Kaige wants to highlight the important point of Mei being the first Chinese actor to perform in America, it fails to salvage the remaining parts of the story. Being the most important point of the story, it was given a mere 10 minutes to summarize Mei's fame in America. Yu Shaoqun shines as a young Mei, where not only he was given ample time to portray his inner struggle, but also appears in various plays in the film. Leon, however, doesn't get much chance to put on the thick makeup and impersonates the beauties of the past in his play.

Too much focuses were given to Mei's romance with Meng, and how Mei refused to performed for the Japanese. Zhang's appearance of Meng takes up only 30 minutes of the story, despite being highlighted as the leading actress. Apart from a bad dubbed over during her opera performances, Zhang wasn't given much chance to explore her role. Chen Hong gets a bigger share in terms of appearances, but less lines. Her appearance as a middle-aged Fu Zhifang is a replacement of younger Fu Zhifang, portrayed by Gillian Chung. Chung's appearance in the film has been removed after the nude photo scandal in 2008, which has unfortunately, damaged part of the film. One will not know how Mei befriends Fu and in the later years of their life, husband and wife.

It was Sun Honglei who makes the film watchable. Playing Qiu Rubai from an adult to an elderly, his influence towards Mei has changed Mei's life, which was described in detail.

It is not surprising that one will compare Forever Enthralled with Farewell My Concubine. In all, Mei Lanfang shines in the real life, but Farewell My Concubine will still be everyone's favorite in reel life.

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.

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!

Dear Director,

I can't help keeping comparing this movie with Farewell My Concubine, one of the best Chinese movies I have seen, which was also directed by you. Yes, having the same director, both tell us a story of Peking Opera singer(s), and both cover a turbulent era of certain decades during the twentieth century in China. I have to say, however, this one is disappointing, in many ways.

I have no doubt about your directing skills just by watching Farewell My Concubine. There, the roles were hysteria, and it's original, intensive, surprising, and thrilling. In Forever Enthralled, you tried to use the exactly same style, but unfortunately, it feels unnatural and overdone, as you were transfered from a brave pioneer to a boring follower of the previous yourself.

Like all types of arts, a real master piece can't be duplicated. Same as motion pictures. Farewell My Concubine is such a master piece that any mimicking trials afterwards, intentionally or not, turns out to fail, even though they are from the same director. There's nothing wrong to make another film of Peking Opera singers, but just don't use the same skill again and again.

Dear Screen Play Writers,

Did you realize the story is unbalanced? The first half of this film drags too long and the pace is way too slow, unnecessarily slow. I know you may want to emphasize Master Mei's earlier life experience that affected him so much, but the title of this film is not "The Teenager hood of Mei Lanfang".

Visiting the US actually was an important experience of Mei and also a great step to give him the opportunity to gain the international fame. However, your film made this part too weak. It's finished in such a hurry in the audiences' applause before I got a chance to focus on the singing of the leading actor. Is this a trick just because the actor couldn't perform the Opera well even though he is a pop singer? Check La Vie en Rose (2007) to see how a movie about a singer can make the singing magnificent.

Dear Ziyi Zhang,

I didn't see much improvement of your acting skills from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Not bad, but not good enough either. Yes I'm picky. But it has a long way to go before a actor/actress becomes a top one.

Dear Leon Lai,

Maybe they picked you for this role because you're a singer, but this role turned out to be too weak and too blurry. Maybe this is not your fault. They just didn't select the right person to act Master Mei. Imagine in the movie Dream Girls (2006): if Beyonce played Effie White, the situation would be insanely different.

Dear Honglei Sun,

I usually don't like those characters you played in the movie, but this one is an exception. Congratulations! You acted so well that I thought this movie should be called "The Story of Mei and His Brother Qiu". YOU ARE LITERALLY THE LEADING ACTOR. They didn't give enough chance to let Mei sing, but you got enough chance to act, and acted the best compared with others in this movie. In this movie, you were a super fan of Peking Opera and a super fan of Mei. You quit your staple teaching job and followed Mei to explore his career, felt happier about his every success than himself, worried him more than anybody else when he was in trouble, and helped him become a real master. Good job! Good for Brother Qiu, but not that good for this film, because this film is not supposed to only focus on Brother Qiu.

Dear Team,

Sorry, frankly speaking, this movie is not enthralled.