Temptress Moon
(Feng Yue, 1996; China/Hong Kong--Chinese with English subtitles)
Chen Kaige's latest banned-in-China film is set in the China's turbulent 1920s, when that nation was forced to figure itself out after thousands of years of Imperial, patriarchal rule. But, nations under years of autocracy often appreciate it more than you might imagine, and often accommodate their everyday autocrats.
The story opens in 1911 when the Emperor abdicates. To avoid the chaos, Zhongliang Yu (Leslie Cheung) is sent to live and study at the country estate of the Pang family, where his sister Xiuyi (Saifei He) is married to Zhengda Pang (Zhou Yemang), an heir--and an opium addict. But the promise of study is not be kept and soon he is forced to be the preparer of Zhengda's opium pipe. Life at the estate is a life unto itself, but unbearable for outsiders, and soon Zhongliang flees into the turbulence, diverted from study in Beijing to the seediness of Shanghai.
Ten years later, the head of the Pang family dies. The Pang clan meets and decide to make Ruyi (Gong Li) the head of the family. She is the sister of the debilitated Zhengda. Her distant cousin Duanwu (Kevin Lin) is appointed to "help" her. Ruyi is also an addict, which makes it difficult to marry her off. Life at the estate become more and more insular when Ruyi dismisses all of the concubines and angers the clan elders.
In Shanghai, where it's the men versus the women, Zhongliang has become a dapper con man, using his sophistication to corner married women into extortion, starting by using his tongue to unhook their earrings. The boss (Xian Xie) of this gang of criminals is fond of Zhongliang and sends him to seduce Ruyi's fortune from her.
What unfolds is a rather unabsorbing tale of unfulfilled dreams and lost illusions. Well filmed, but boring. The actors do a good job but the script is not one to cause empathy. It is difficult to watch characters for 130 minutes when you don't give a damn about them. Considering they are all leading lives that have been planned by others in a time of political chaos, you would think there would be something to work with there.
The innocent faces of Ruyi, Zhongliang, and Duanwu open the film. Within ten years they are a naive addict, a gigolo, and a coward. All three go through the motions dictated to them, and all three are miserable. You would think that they would have connected on some sort of level. Only Zhongliang's sister expresses true feelings of being trapped in all this luxury, but she is shrill and her brother blames her for making him heartless.
Chen Kaige is best known for another snoozer--Farewell, My Concubine, which was rife with unconnected, unsympathetic characters. Kaige ought to pay close attention to compatriot Yimou Zhang, who directs films where people really talk to each other and make the suffering more empathetic.
Copyright 1997 Seth J. Bookey, New York, NY 10021
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8588/kino.html
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