Here’s a post that I just sent to Mobius Home Video Forum about Zhang Yi Mou’s new film:
I saw this last night at my school cinema — tickets were sold out, and I only got to go because my student’s husband had been given them at work.
A few observations, especially about how the audience reacted to the film:
The film itself was not too well-received, as far as I could tell. People WERE impressed by a few of the scenes that involved huge numbers of people, and the audience was impressed by the ninja scenes as well. The audience was audibly offended and distracted by all the breasts on display. I thought a lot of the costumes as well as the hair styles looked very European Renaissance, not Chinese — I thought that especially when it came to the Imperial Physician’s daughter. The women’s breasts were done up in these bandeau things that gave them tons of cleavage, making them jiggle sometimes as they walked along. Gong Li’s breast were revealed almost too much, and other women had these little glittery applique things on their chests. A lot of people in the audience tched or snickered because of this several times. My friend told me that this film is becoming sort of a joke already because of all the boobs on display. I thought the lighting wasn’t so great, especially at the beginning of the film — Gong Li was well-lit, but Liu Ye, in the same frame, wasn’t at all. People laughed at Liu Ye’s character a lot as well. I was perplexed. I didn’t know if he was actually supposed to be funny or not. I asked my friend, and she said people were laughing because he was such a coward. But did Zhang Yi Mou set out to make people laugh? I didn’t find Chow Yun-fat so believable — he did look rather old and fat, and I think when he speaks Putonghua, his voice is not very strong. It’s very quiet, not resonant or masculine. That worked against him. In fact I think any experienced Chinese character actor could have done just as well in the same part. I don’t know if it was the theater I saw it in, or the print I watched, but it seemed the focus in the film was not very deep. There were some scenes that would have been much more impressive (particularly the scenes involving lots of soldiers) if we had been able to see clearly all the way to the back of the frame.
The biggest surprise for me was that Jay Chow really did fine. At first, I assumed he would be horrible, and that he was just put in the film to pander to young people. While he did LOOK out of place when he was just standing there, as soon as he started to talk or interact with other characters he was really good. I could actually believe him as Gong Li’s son because of the was he interacted with her. I never expected this. He did well in the martial arts scenes as well.
The big battle scene was really impressive, as were the scenes involving the ninjas. I might see it again, just to find out if the focus was really only a problem in the theater where I saw it, because I think those scenes would have looked amazing in deep focus. In general, though, I don’t think the film was really impressive. Several things were just overdramatic, so much so that I can’t single out just one example, and so much so that maybe the the moments that really should have stood out were just buried under many other impressive-looking, dramatic ones.
