(no subject)
You know the cliché about eating Chinese food: You get full fast but feel empty an hour later? Well, I felt empty about 20 minutes into this awful movie. Truly, this is the worst film I've seen by a so-called fifth-generation Chinese director, let alone someone of Zhang Yimou's stature.
"COTGF" feels emblematic of the materialistic excesses Chinese society is currently experiencing. The director thickly laid on the glitz and the bling with a trowel, to the point where the viewers were simply overwhelmed with all the oppressive opulence. The literally over-the-top costumes (Gong Li's tightly corseted breast should score an Oscar nod for a "supporting" role) and sets served only to underscore the lack of direction, acting skills, and storytelling.
Characters came and went endlessly for no apparent purpose through palace corridors and rooms that looked like a bag of multi-color Popsicles had exploded in them. The story itself was just a thinly veiled rip-off of "Hamlet" and "Macbeth." The actors, especially Liu Ye, the actor who played the Crown Prince, were left looking amateurish and ridiculous when they resorted to facial histrionics to convey emotions. (The audience I was in actually laughed out loud at Liu Ye's death scene.) A number of scenes were announced with the ever-present and irritatingly ominous music as if they were very important, only to have the audience go, "Huh, is that all there is?" when the scenes ended. The martial-arts sequences were laughably staged and a far cry from the mastery of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." On top of that, the director relied too much on computer-generated special effects to fill out the screen during battle scenes. The special effects were obviously fake to a jaded audience who is used to much better CGI visuals in other movies.
All this is very disappointing to see in a director who made such stunning films as "Raise the Red Lantern," "Ju Dou," and "To Live." Those films had startling visuals too, but they weren't meant to supplant the heart of any film, a story. It's as if Zhang had lost his way starting with the mediocre "Hero," where he overemphasized his painterly use of colors to the detriment of storytelling, which is, first and foremost, a director's responsibility. It's as if he felt he has to bludgeon his audience on the head with bloated, grand, operatic extravaganzas to entertain them, in the absence of true humanity, something he expressed so well in the magnificent "To Live." I can only hope that he'll find his connection to the human condition again, perhaps in smaller films in the future. When will prominent Chinese directors realize that "going Hollywood" will eventually rob them of the very qualities that made their films so special in the first place?
Finally, if you're a fan of the great Gong Li, look for her in "To Live." She was poignantly subtle, completely natural, and heartbreaking in it - at the peak of her acting powers - unlike her unfortunate breast-heaving performance in "COTGF." However, I would lay the blame squarely at Zhang Yimou's door, as the director, for this overblown dreck of a movie.
"COTGF" feels emblematic of the materialistic excesses Chinese society is currently experiencing. The director thickly laid on the glitz and the bling with a trowel, to the point where the viewers were simply overwhelmed with all the oppressive opulence. The literally over-the-top costumes (Gong Li's tightly corseted breast should score an Oscar nod for a "supporting" role) and sets served only to underscore the lack of direction, acting skills, and storytelling.
Characters came and went endlessly for no apparent purpose through palace corridors and rooms that looked like a bag of multi-color Popsicles had exploded in them. The story itself was just a thinly veiled rip-off of "Hamlet" and "Macbeth." The actors, especially Liu Ye, the actor who played the Crown Prince, were left looking amateurish and ridiculous when they resorted to facial histrionics to convey emotions. (The audience I was in actually laughed out loud at Liu Ye's death scene.) A number of scenes were announced with the ever-present and irritatingly ominous music as if they were very important, only to have the audience go, "Huh, is that all there is?" when the scenes ended. The martial-arts sequences were laughably staged and a far cry from the mastery of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." On top of that, the director relied too much on computer-generated special effects to fill out the screen during battle scenes. The special effects were obviously fake to a jaded audience who is used to much better CGI visuals in other movies.
All this is very disappointing to see in a director who made such stunning films as "Raise the Red Lantern," "Ju Dou," and "To Live." Those films had startling visuals too, but they weren't meant to supplant the heart of any film, a story. It's as if Zhang had lost his way starting with the mediocre "Hero," where he overemphasized his painterly use of colors to the detriment of storytelling, which is, first and foremost, a director's responsibility. It's as if he felt he has to bludgeon his audience on the head with bloated, grand, operatic extravaganzas to entertain them, in the absence of true humanity, something he expressed so well in the magnificent "To Live." I can only hope that he'll find his connection to the human condition again, perhaps in smaller films in the future. When will prominent Chinese directors realize that "going Hollywood" will eventually rob them of the very qualities that made their films so special in the first place?
Finally, if you're a fan of the great Gong Li, look for her in "To Live." She was poignantly subtle, completely natural, and heartbreaking in it - at the peak of her acting powers - unlike her unfortunate breast-heaving performance in "COTGF." However, I would lay the blame squarely at Zhang Yimou's door, as the director, for this overblown dreck of a movie.