Customer Reviews

Summer Palace

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In the late 1980's, an inexperienced young woman named Yu Hong leaves her hometown and boyfriend in the provinces to attend Beijing University. Almost immediately, she falls into a passionate love/hate relationship with a fellow student at the school. This torrid affair plays out partly against the backdrop of the student protests and subsequent massacre that occurred in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989. (The movie also takes place briefly in Germany, the other part of the world where significant social change was occurring in 1989).

"Summer Palace" plays almost like the autopsy of a romantic obsession, attempting to get at the root of why we love in the way that we do. A novice at true love, Yu Hong understands neither her undying passion for Zhou Wei nor her seemingly incessant need to keep sabotaging their relationship. The closest she can come to grasping this paradox is when she says to Zhou Wei: "I want to break up...because I can't leave you." Love is seen almost as a form of mental illness in this film - as a debilitating, all-consuming condition that one is powerless to control or "cure" but which, if left unchecked, can become the single dominant force in a person's life (we rarely see Yu Hong studying, let alone going to class). One can attempt to fill the void with other loves, but the heart always comes back to the same place.

"Summer Palace" is long and occasionally repetitious and the political aspects aren`t as effectively integrated into the story as they perhaps might have been, but the movie is beautifully acted by Lei Hao and Xiaodong Guo, among others, and features incisive and sensitive direction by Ye Lou (who, along with Feng Mei and Ma Yingli, co-authored the screenplay). This is a largely impressionistic film, concentrating more on mood, imagery and emotions than on narrative. The last hour of the film - so filled with longing and regret as the characters age and attempt to come to terms with the special thing they have lost - is particularly lyrical and heartbreaking and will haunt you long after the movie is over.

All told, "Summer Palace" is an intelligent and moving rumination on that mysterious force we call love.

"Because it is only when we make love that you understand that I'm gentle."

That's all the character development I need. This is an ambitious film about the stalled maturation of an idealistic but troubled young woman flanked by the Tiananmen Square protests, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China. The film spans a decade and a half from 1987 to 2003 so I guess the misery of Three Gorges Dam couldn't make the final cut. The direction is a little chaotic at times but it reflects the nature of the film and doesn't come off as too much of a liability. The soundtrack is impeccably chosen and the film is ultimately very sad. I was glued to this 140 minute masterpiece. Politics aside, and they are on the side, this is a remarkable film in its honest portrayal of failure, not of personal character necessarily, but of circumstance.

This is another film that got its director and producer banned for five years from making films in China. Maybe it's the full-frontal nudity or the sheer quantity of sex scenes but I don't see the need for hubbub. The film is about a woman's self-reflection on why she finds comfort in the arms of different men. We see her naked inside and out. She is afraid to love out of fear, fear of something she hasn't yet experienced, but isn't that the scariest kind of fear?

There are a number of things wrong with the film, perhaps, but very little could be done to improve it. Great films succeed in spite of their weaknesses. I'm not a fan of off camera narration but it works for me here. It seems additional rather than necessary. There is a maturity to the woman's voice as she narrates with entries from her diary that compliments, does not seem at odds with, the can't-quite-grow-up activities of the woman on screen. In order to get from the Berlin Wall to the Hong Kong Handover, 1989 to 1997, we're treated to narrative onscreen text to fill us in on what's happening to the characters. Ordinarily that would be a deal breaker for me, in theory at least, but again, it works. Finally, as if this were a real story about real people, after the final denouement occurs we're given updates on what happened or didn't happen to the principle characters. Frankly, as gut-wrenchingly sad but true as the final scene is I wish it would have just faded to black. But I think it's a tribute to the strength of the characters that I found myself intrigued by the postscript.

Having said that, I think one could argue that from a strictly script perspective a little more fleshing out was in order ... and I don't mean that full-frontally. I think it comes down to this: if you've ever known passionate, poetic, misguided people, you know these people right away. They're part beautiful and part brutal, there's no talking them out of it. That's the point. This film doesn't set out to explain, diagnose, or change its characters. It just wants to show them to you in all their painful glory, and I think it does a very good job of it. Then again, maybe it's just a case of been there, done that.

When I decided to see this film, I thought I will be watching a movie about the Tiananmen Square student revolt in 1989 China. These students demonstrations have echoed all over the world and reflecting on it 20 years later seemed to give a viewer a second chance on understanding student revolutions. Personally, I wanted to understand if there was any similarity in Chinese student uprising compared to the student uprising in 1960s Eastern Europe. But once I started watching the movie, I have realized that this is a deeply personal reflection of a young provincial girl, on her own in a big city (Beijing), first generation in her family to study in college. She is unable to handle emotional whirlwind of sexual awakening she experiences with one of her colleagues and that experience is defining the rest of her life in terms of her education, profession, personal disappointments and emotional failures. Her small circle of friends is part of the uprisings and the outcome of it: personal, political and emotional stay with all of them for the rest of their lives.

For anyone who has ever thought of sex as a good passing time, this film is a reminder that sex can also scar a parson forever. It is also a film that reflects on the fact that all revolutions, no matter how big or small are spontaneous and held by the masses no matter how innocent they are. Chinese governement was ready to supress students by using all means necessary and it was a lesson for all because in the last 20 years one cannot say we have heard of any other uprising there since. Although film feels like dragging at times, and some of the sex scenes are unnecessary it is a haunting story about time and a place for one of a kind love that cannot be recaptured ever again. It is kind of love that leave everyone involved damaged (or dead) forever.

The film is shot beautifully, I loved how it felt. Ye has a great touch and the performances are all top notch. I can understand some people not having the attention span for the film, but I found it quite moving.

The SF Chronicle's review was dead on for me: "the most important mainland Chinese film this decade"...

Here's a film that's absolutely not to be missed! Fabulous concept, screenplay, direction, production and magnificent star-making performances. Best love story I've seen in years!

Very good Chinese movie, true life, true story, true mood, just true

Chinese were liberated in the 1980's. The liberation movement from politics to sex, it made the young generation lost.

They enjoy their freedom and they want more and more. But they are lost. They do not know what's true, what's false, what's the end.

Very inspiring.

"Summer Palace" is a slow and dreary drama. The main character, a young woman played by Lei Hao, is depressed for no apparent reason, and watching her drift through her life is as exciting as watching grass grow. Hao does nothing but randomly date and break up with men, all the while droning on about it in a tedious narrative. The director also made the even worse "Purple Butterfly". The movie would have been rated R for graphic sex scenes and nudity (which are also dreary).

I wasted hours on this film because it won awards and got great reviews. Now I feel I have to say something. Any film about a young woman who is somehow oppressed will win awards and get great reviews. That's all. The story doesn't have to be there. I tried to follow Yu Hong's passion but found none. She was a sulky small town girl whose loves and story were lost in bad writing and poor editing. Yes, there was some superficial political content, a few snapshots of the era of the violent put downs in Tienanmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall, and some fragmented dialog around this. But the actress was clearly chosen for her bra size and the film dwelled on rather dull sex scenes and the character's spoiled sulky teenager girl traits rather than any detailed exploration of what surely was an amazing time and place or what led to Yu's emotional decline. I suspect the makers realized what a mess they had and inserted a couple of long narrative voiceovers to try to explain things, or maybe they just ran out of budget halfway through filming, or maybe they thought the violence in China was truly like losing a boyfriend. Oh dear! I won't trust reviews and EU film awards anymore.

Ye Lou's ambitious film ends up being a film that demonstrates a couple of truths about filmmaking. First of all, you need a strong narrative drive and sympathetic (or, at the very least, understandable) characters. Secondly, the director should not attempt to edit the film. Summer Palace ignores both of these dictums and suffers for it. Yu Hong is a sulky girl who drifts through this film in an uncomprehending and incomprehensible way. We get that she has to leave her first love, Wang Bo, in the countryside so as to attend Beijing University, and this makes her unhappy. She then meets another lover, Zhou Wei, and he makes her unhappy. Apart from looking decidedly unhappy, we know she is unhappy because she has at least three long voice-over sequences containing a lot of expository dialogue outlining her unhappiness. Zhou Wei doesn't really have much to do apart from deciding whether he is going to have sex with Yu Hong or Li Ti. Li Ti, apart from being the sometime love interest of Zhou Wei and Ruo Gu, doesn't have anything much to do, goes to Berlin, and kills herself (as you do). Zhou Wei and Yu Hong try to re-establish their previous relationship, but don't in the end (I guess it would spoil their general air of unhappiness). Meantime, we have students dancing to daggy sixties pop music (maybe cool isn't a very Chinese concept); students joyfully climbing onto trucks to go off to Tianamen Square (although it is unclear why); students throwing rocks at a burning military truck until the nice PLA soldiers come along and persuade them to go home; students ambling down the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin (again we don't know why, but this time their are portraits of Marx and Lenin so I guess it is something to do with communism); and finally students having lots of long and boring sex. Man, life was tough in the old China (at least lots of people were pretty unhappy). I would advise anybody interested in Ye Lou's oeuvre, to instead check out Suzhou River. In that film we can see a filmmaker with some promising ideas; in Summer Palace we see a filmmaker who is in danger of losing his way.

Filled with non-stop sex, punctuated by the political events of the times--such as the Tiananmen Square student protests of 1989--this film follows a young girl from the Chinese countryside through her many loves and lovers, and those of her friends. The reality of death intrudes in Berlin, like a jealous mistress; a friend's death, not her own. Betrayals are ever present, as well as sadness and emptiness. Finally, there is an epiphany of sorts. The musical score is exquisite.