Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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111 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, violent, and disturbing Chinese history lesson, October 10, 2003
This award-winning 1993 Chinese film is an epic in every sense of the word. It is not only the story of some very interesting characters, it is also the story of the Peking Opera as well as modern Chinese history from 1924 to 1977. It is beautiful and sad and violent and romantic. And, along the way, I learned a lot about Chinese opera.The performers are all male, and training for the young boys is harsh. Apprentices start in early childhood. They are beaten often for such infractions as forgetting their lines. They are forced to kneel for hours holding up buckets water. They are stretched into split positions in torturous agony. And yet, as we follow the story of two of these young boys, we come to understand that this horrible treatment resulted in classically trained performers, some of whom rose to great fame. This is the story of two young orphan friends, Dousi and Shitou, played by three sets of actors depicting their childhood, then adolescence, then adulthood (and cast so well that it really seemed like the same actors growing up). Dousi is more delicate and excels in the role of the concubine. Shitou is more robust and always plays the king in "Farewell My Concubine" which is a classic Chinese opera. It's easy to see that Dousi is in love with Shitou but Shitou favors women and marries a the lovely Juxian, who he meets in a brothel. Immediately, there's a love triangle. All this is set against the backdrop of first the Japanese invasion, then the Nationalist Army and then the Communists. The characters suffer through all this and adapt and struggle. There are horrible moments, especially when they renounce each other during the cultural revolution. My emotions were touched by their plight because I really felt I knew each of these people. I didn't even mind the almost-three-hour-long film because it seemed I was actually living their lives right with them. And there was no way it could have been told in a shorter time. I loved this film. It's disturbing, of course. But yet, I came away with an understanding of China that I could never get from merely reading history books. Highly recommended.
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77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A True Masterpiece, April 6, 2003
"Farewell My Concubine" was released exactly 10 years ago (1993). I meant to rent it for the longest time, because I've heard nothing but rave reviews about the director, the actors, and the storyline. I finally rented the director's cut DVD this weekend. It was nearly 3 hours long and worth every minute of my time. Sadly to say, Leslie Cheung, the male lead in the film, suddenly committed suicide in Hong Kong on April 1st. His death prompted me to rent "Farewell My Concubine," which I heard was one of the BEST performances of his career.Cheung plays an emotionally tormented character, Douzi, who was raised in a strict and often brutal Beijing opera school. The film follows Douzi from childhood to adulthood. Cheung gave an emotional and moving performance. The other actors in the cast, Gong Li (the beautiful and talented actress who starred in "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Temptress Moon"), and actor Zhang Fengyi also gave outstanding performances. Since Cheung's recent death, director Chen Kaige has said Leslie Cheung IS the character he played in "Farewell My Concubine." There is a hint of sadness mixed with helplessness and charisma surrounding Cheung's character. The dramatic and chilling ending moved me. I highly recommend this film to not just fans of Chinese cinema, but to all audiences who can appreciate a beautifully acted, well scripted, and brilliantly shot film.
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I am by Nature a Boy, October 26, 2003
Farewell My Concubine is about loss of identity. It is a study in how a person reacts to a slow and methodical stripping away of self. Because of this, the movie is almost a psychological study. Many people may think it is about repressed homosexuality in China, but they are missing the primary point. The movie's main character, Cheng Dieyi, is the person most impacted by loss of identity, though it is also experienced by the other main characters as well. From the castration/mutilation inflicted on him by his mother at the beginning to his eventual suicide, it's as though layer by layer of his being is slowly peeled away. Let me for a moment simply regurgitate the way in which this happened. Cheng Dieyi was born as a prostitute's son. From the very beginning, he would be considered a bastard child in almost every culture. His mother claims that he is getting in the way of her "business" at the local brothel and she seeks a way to be rid of him. She winds up taking him to a local acting troupe and when they refuse to take him because of his sixth finger on one hand, Dieyi's mother cuts it off. This can easily be seen as the act of castration. Then his identity is further stripped away by the acting troupe drilling it into his head that he is a woman, since he plays a woman in the theater. From this point on, he associates his lost masculinity with his best friend, Duan Xiaolou. However, even his friendship is taken away when Xiaolou becomes involved with-guess who-a prostitute. It should be apparent to all who see it, that the hatred he feels toward the prostitute, Ju Xian, is not only because she is taking away his confidant, but also because she reminds Dieyi of his mother. Like many people confronted with loss of identity, Dieyi seeks an avenue of escape by doing drugs. The last thing which he is able to keep as his identity is the role he performs on the stage as a concubine for the king of Chu-but even this is eventually lost when he is replaced by a child who he helps to rear. Dieyi isn't the only one who loses his identity, however. Ju Xian struggled to rid herself of the emotional baggage attached to being a prostitute. She became involved with Xiaolou hoping to build a family and achieve some normalcy. However, Dieyi's relationship with Xiaolou complicates matters, and when she loses her unborn child almost all hope is lost. When Xiaolou disavows any love for her, her dream is shattered and she commits suicide. From these two examples in the movie, one can see how one emotionally could be driven to suicide. Dieyi's loss of identity involves the stripping away of every aspect of his masculine self and a devaluation of things which he holds dear. Many people evaluate his relationship to Xialou as a homosexual one, and while it seems to be the case, I would argue that the relationship could also be merely one of a protector-devotee nature or possibly even an older-brother-younger-brother relationship. Ju Xian, likewise loses her self-respect by being a prostitute and later loses everything which could pull her out of this psychological trap. Since the events in China played a role in these two personal losses of identity, it is possible that the movie was simply expressing the author's personal sense of loss at the hands of a repressive cultural history. On the other hand, the fact that many events compound the loss of identity could simply be a way of showing how external forces can influence one's own sense of self. This last possibility is probably the author's intent, since the story could easily be told within the context of any tumultuous period-such as the United States during the Vietnam War era. The end confirms my view of the film's portrayal of self-identity loss when Dieyi messes up the line in the play and says he is a boy not a girl. Throughout his life his identity as a man had been taken away. He struggled against it, was conquered by it, and eventually asserted what power he had left in the act of suicide. I felt tired and emotionally drained at the end of the movie. Farewell My Concubine, unlike any other film I have seen, superbly depicts human nature and is very insightful. It should be declared a masterpiece of not only Chinese cinema, but of film the world over.
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