FFWD Weekly
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An epic disappointment
Chinese film fails to impress as love story or as political statement
By Lori MontgomeryTemptress Moon
written and directed by Chen Kaige
starring Leslie Cheung and Gong Li
Globe Cinema
Opens Friday, August 8Temptress Moon is a film thats reach exceeds its grasp in the most dramatic way I've ever seen on screen.
Director Chen's last film, Farewell My Concubine, was unabashedly political, dropping two characters in the midst of one of China's most turbulent periods. What evolved was a fascinating character study, but the movie was banned in China and Chen has said that Temptress Moon is his attempt to focus on the psychological rather than the political - to make a film that can be shown in his own country. Unfortunately, he has failed on almost every level.
The core of Temptress Moon is a tragic love story. Ruyi is heiress to the Pang fortune. Zhongliang is a gigolo in Shanghai, who happens to be Ruyi's childhood playmate. Zhongliang's Boss orders him to seduce Ruyi and bring her to Shanghai, where Boss' thugs will "deal with her." Of course, the tortured young man falls in love with the beautiful girl, but their love is doomed.
As Zhongliang, Leslie Cheung is the most appealing part of the movie. He creates a character that seems to take on life despite a simplistic script and heavy-handed direction. Gong Li, on the other hand, is a stunning disappointment as Ruyi. The Winona Ryder of Chinese film displays none of the pathos of her performance in Red Sorghum despite a magnificent amount of weeping, and none of the inner strength of her performance in Raise the Red Lantern, despite a serenity that borders on catatonia.
A little more focus might have cured the problem, but Chen seems as addicted to political rhetoric as his characters are to opium and he can't resist opening his film on the very night that the last Chinese emperor abdicates and dynastic rule comes to an end. The plot glosses over everything from what Boss plans to do with Ruyi, to why Zhongliang is such a bastard, to what this all has to do with the Revolution of 1911.
And one more thing - the film was banned in China anyway.
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