Review of Farewell My Concubine (1993) by Kevin N — 23 Nov 2009

A difficult movie to watch, but one that comes with many rewards. One is seeing the cultural revolution in China through such coherency, even when the events taking place consist of absolute chaos; another is the actors, all of whom share equal power and all of whom give bare, raw performances.

Director Kaige Chen is wise to center his drama around drama, an old tradition in the heat of the threat of change. His characters take up an extraordinary medium between the old ways and the new, and it leaves his audience paying bewildered attention.