Review of Raise the Red Lantern (1991) by Isabelle W — 19 Jul 2012

I've seen many films from Asia, however, I've never been as impressed as I was with "Raise the Red Lantern". Filmed at a time where Wong-Kar Wai was getting lots of praise for creating movies that dealt with modern issues beautifully, director Zhang Yimou instead resorts back to the good old fashioned period piece with "Raise the Red Lantern".

The film, which takes place in the 1920's, shows us a world where a man of high regime marries multiple women at a time. Our focus is Songlian (Gong Li), a 19-year old girl who decides to become one of the newest concubines.

She immediately clashes with the other three wives, and soon the high life gets to her head. Zhang Yimou's direction is top-notch here. Instead of resorting to too many melodramatic tendencies like this film could, he instead gives us small doses that keep us interested but not overwhelmed.

The film itself is slow paced, and beautiful-- the cinematography bursts with reds and oranges that reflect the romanticism but eerie undertones of the film-- but once we begin to understand the situation, and the female lead, the more we begin to dislike them.

Gong Li's performance is exquisite: her character's changes from naive to spoiled to completely mad is so perfect that it challenges France's own Catherine Deneuve's famous title as the prime "ice maiden".

But what Yimou wants us to do is to cringe at what's happening-- he doesn't want us to like anything that's going on. And that's what makes "Raise the Red Lantern" so interesting-- we don't really like anything about it except looking at it, but it pulls us in deep.

With Li's magnetism and beauty, and Yimou's manipulative touch, it seems that foreign films have never been this ruthless, or this truthful. Highly recommended.