Review of Farewell My Concubine (1993) by Jonathan Y — 04 Nov 2007

Beautifully filmed, but badly paced and indulgent. Still, a vivid peek into the cruel world that has shaped modern china, from the invasion of the Japanese, to the nationalists and then to the crazed communists and the cultural revolution.

Against this turbulent backdrop, the two leads continue playing out their theatre roles, seemingly unaffected - or refusing to be affected by the cyclical madness that has engulfed them. But their self-imposed cocoon does not save them from the communists - who are shown to be much more vicious, uncultured and unpredictable than the much hated Japanese invaders.

In retrospect, this film may well have been the precursor of films like Gangs of New York - another movie that shows a world within a world. Even as China crumbles to dust as the main protaganists know it, they continue duelling and dwelling in their own little sick twisted jealous world.

Gong Li is breath-taking, while Leslie Cheung's portrayal of the effiminate Gauzi is heart-breaking. The man torn in between his two loves of theatre and devotion to his wife, and of husbandly love with quasi-homoerotic love with his stage partner is ultimately the only mangled survivor in this film.