Product Details

• Actors: Liu Huai-Liang, Zhang Jian, Shu Qi, Li Mengan, Liu Ye
• Directors: Lu Le, Lu Yue
• Format: Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: Cantonese
• Subtitles: Chinese, English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Tai Seng
• DVD Release Date: August 16, 2004
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0002B55XE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #280,350 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Synopsis Summer, 1974. On her way back from family visit in the Kunming province, young female intellectual Xing-yu (Shu Qi) meets the man she won't forget for the rest of her life: young rebellious intellectual Si Mong (Liu Hua). Xing Yu's childhood friend and lover Yuan Ding Guo (Fang Bin) is the leader of her platoon. At the busy Red Post Town market, Yuan and his friends get into a bloody fight with Si Mong. and sustain injury. Xing Yu subsequently gets caught between the two hostile groups. Hoping to negotiate a truce, Xing Yu approaches Si Mong only to be drawn further into a forbidden and passionate relationship. Divinity, however, decides to intervene. It seems the social upheaval of the time, not Yuan, has control over Xing Yu's destiny. Pouring rain eventually puts out the fiery passion that livens up the little hut. When violence finally subsides, one's heart also dies...

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Passionate,forbbidden love story, November 19, 2005

By 

Joanne Madison T. (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Foliage (DVD)

This is a wonderful movie,a very elaborate peice of work on Chinese Communist leader's Mao ruling and governing of China in 1974.

The natives of the country were then divided in to various infantries,wear green and dull-looking clothes,and addressed each other as 'comrades'. Life was tough,and those living inthe rural plains wants to go the city.

Politics aside,The Foliage is mostly a love story.Shu Qi,who recently won Best Actress in the Golden Horse Awards (Chinese equivalent of the Oscars) for her perfomance in Three Times,portrays convincingly as Xing-Yu,a young female intellectual who has just return from the city state,and is awaiting for the goverment to grant her a discharge to move to the city.

Here,on the way back home,she befriends a young rebel,Sie Mong,who falls for her.It did not help when Xing-Yu's childhood sweetheart felt indignant as he realises she,too,is in love with Sie Mong.Because Sie Mong and Xing-Yu are both from different infantries (that is,communities),they have to share a forbidden love affair.Expect lots of clashes,fights and the death of a close friend.

The movie also goes to some 29 years later.It is poignant,as the two young lovers were not together.Xing-Yu later married,and it was only her journey back to the village for her husband's burial that she meets Sie Mong.It was only then she realised she and Sie Mong still love one another.I didn't quite get the ending part,the one where a young Xing-Yu chased after a bus while Sie Mong looks out,for in the beginning of the movie,there was another version,that is Sie Mong stopped the bus driver for Xing-Yu to come on board.

Whatever it is,i think this is a brilliant movie.It is between two young intelletuals pursing a passionate,yet forbidden love affair.It does not help that both leads,Shu Qi and Liu Ye (Sie Mong) are both eye candies.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Love story among intellectuals in countryside, November 2, 2007

By 

Koreen (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Foliage (DVD)

"The Foliage" begins in 1974 near the end of the disastrous Cultural Revolution in China, when many young people, especially from families of intellectuals, were sent to the countryside. Many of them, such as Xing-Yu, want to return to the cities. In her case she is especially eager to return to Kumming to help take care of her father.

An unexpected, accidental meeting with Sie Mong, who helps her catch a ride on a bus, has a major impact upon both of them. While it is somewhat hard to believe he would maintain his love for her over twenty-nine years, while she married another man, this development makes for an interesting love story.

The ending, actually a possible alternative beginning, is ambiguous, but thought provoking. Is Xing-Yu wondering how her life would have changed if Sie Mong had not stopped the bus twenty-nine years earlier? I am not sure.

The very beginning of the movie, showing black and white photographs, of actual young people sent to the countyside during the Cultural Revolution is interesting. While the events in this movie take place near the end of the Cultural Revolution, they do not convey what a terrible experience this was for hundreds of thousands of young people. For a better historical understanding of these events, I highly recommend Jung Chang's "Wild Swans." one of my favorite books.

This is a very worthwhile movie to watch and is visually enjoyable.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Foliage, February 2, 2007

By 

D. S. HARDEN "a movie fan" (L.A.,CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Foliage (DVD)

An different kind of love story that unfolds over several decades. Shu Qi, as usual does a good job with what's she's given. Four stars!