Flowers of War (5 Stars)

Directed by Zhang Yimou, "The Flowers of War" is a large scale historical drama set during the Nanjing Massacre of 1937. The story follows an opportunistic American undertaker, played by Christian Bale, who takes refuge in a church as Japanese troops overrun the city. Inside the church, a group of schoolgirls and a group of prostitutes find themselves forced into an uneasy alliance as they struggle to survive the occupation.

The film combines brutal wartime imagery with a melodramatic narrative typical of Zhang's style. The opening sequences depicting the fall of Nanjing are chaotic and frightening, capturing the terror of civilians caught in a collapsing city. At the centre of the story is Bale as a reluctant protector, a cynical outsider who gradually assumes responsibility for those sheltering with him. While the character arc is predictable, Bale gives the role enough humanity to keep the film emotionally grounded.

Visually, the film is striking. Zhang contrasts the devastation outside with the candlelit interiors of the church, creating moments of quiet beauty amid the horror. At times the stylised presentation risks softening the historical brutality, yet the film still conveys the moral desperation of people trapped in an impossible situation.

"The Flowers of War" may not be a subtle war film, but it's emotionally powerful. By focusing on sacrifice and solidarity among unlikely companions, it turns a vast historical tragedy into an intimate story about courage and survival.

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The Road Home (5 Stars)

I have a principle. Every time I watch a bad film, like "Spring Breakers" yesterday. I make sure that the next film is something I know and love. Bad films have an effect on my mood. They bring me down. So what better film can I watch than "The Road Home", a beautiful love story directed by Zhang Yimou?

"The Road Home" is one of Zhang Yimou's most deceptively simple films; a rural love story told with the clarity of folklore and the emotional precision of memory.

Set in a small northern Chinese village, the film unfolds through a son's recollection of how his parents met. The present is rendered in austere black and white, while the past blooms into saturated colour; a visual strategy that quietly reverses expectation, suggesting that memory is more vivid than lived reality. At the centre is Zhang Ziyi's luminous performance as a young woman whose love expresses itself through ritual, patience and stubborn devotion. Her repeated walks along the dirt road become acts of faith; love is not declared but enacted.

Zhang strips away political spectacle and urban modernity, focusing instead on landscape, tradition and the dignity of ordinary people. Yet beneath its pastoral calm lies a subtle meditation on change. The arrival of modern education, the Cultural Revolution's aftershocks and the erosion of village customs hover at the edges of the frame. What remains constant is the emotional architecture of remembrance.

Unfashionably earnest and almost defiantly sentimental, "The Road Home" works because it believes in its own sincerity. It's a film about waiting, about honouring the past and about how love survives in gestures repeated over time. In its quiet way, it's one of Zhang's most moving achievements.

Not One Less (5 Stars)

"Not One Less" is the ninth film made by Zhang Yimou, and it's different to any of his earlier films. It abandons the heightened visuals of his period pieces in favour of an unvarnished look at life in rural China. What makes the film so compelling is the way its candid scenes anchor the story. Zhang works with non-professional actors, real locations and situations that unfold with the loose rhythm of daily life. The result is a drama that feels lived rather than staged. The actors who have speaking roles all use their real-life names and careers, so they're playing themselves, and the film has the style of a documentary.

The early village scenes establish this tone immediately. The school is a crumbling building where chalk is rationed and chairs are mismatched. Children wander in and out with the relaxed confidence of pupils who know that no one has the authority to discipline them. These moments are shot with patience; the camera sits back, letting kids quarrel, run errands or drift into boredom. Nothing feels arranged. Wei Minzhi enters this world as a shy substitute teacher who is barely older than her students; her hesitations and stubbornness blend seamlessly with the environment. When she struggles to keep order or negotiate for chalk, the interactions feel as if they were captured rather than directed.

The film becomes even more striking once the story moves to the city. The candid approach continues but the mood changes sharply. In Beijing the camera records crowds, noise and pace; Wei is swallowed by traffic and anonymous streets. Her attempts to ask for help are met with indifference, and Zhang lets these moments play out with minimal interference. Passers-by glance at the camera or ignore it; the film absorbs the energy of the city without smoothing it into neat drama. The gap between the quiet village and the disorienting urban landscape becomes the emotional centre of the film. Wei's determination grows in direct response to the chaos around her.

The television station sequence is particularly effective because it fuses the candid approach with a controlled setting. Wei appears tiny in imposing hallways; she stands silently while adults hurry past her. When she finally delivers her appeal on camera, the moment works not through sentiment but through sincerity. The unpolished performance fits the film's style; it feels like the culmination of her journey rather than a manufactured climax.

By using real people and authentic spaces, Zhang crafts a social drama that avoids melodrama. The candid scenes in the village and the city do more than provide texture; they reveal the structural inequalities that shape the characters' lives. A single piece of chalk becomes a symbol of scarcity. A bus fare becomes a barrier that might end a child's education. None of this is stated directly; it emerges naturally from what the camera observes.

"Not One Less" succeeds because it trusts ordinary moments. The film's humanity comes from watching how people actually behave in cramped classrooms, dusty streets or crowded stations. Through these candid scenes, Zhang delivers a story about responsibility and persistence that feels honest and quietly powerful.

Coming Home (5 Stars)

Zhang Yimou's "Coming Home" (2014) presents a restrained yet emotionally resonant study of memory, trauma and enduring love in post-Cultural Revolution China. Departing from the visual spectacle that characterized his earlier works, Zhang adopts a subdued aesthetic and an intimate narrative mode to explore how political violence fractures personal identity and collective history. Through nuanced performances by Gong Li and Chen Daoming, "Coming Home" transforms a private tragedy into a meditation on national amnesia and the human need to remember.

Introduction

The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) remains one of the most traumatic periods in modern Chinese history, leaving indelible scars on both individuals and institutions. Zhang Yimou's "Coming Home" situates its narrative at the aftermath of this upheaval, not as a political exposé but as an emotional and psychological inquiry. Adapted from Yan Geling's novel "The Criminal Lu Yanshi", the film narrows its focus to a single family torn apart by ideological persecution and time. The story's apparent simplicity – a husband returning home to a wife who no longer remembers him – belies a profound investigation into how trauma reshapes love and identity.

Aesthetic Restraint and Visual Composition

Unlike the vivid colour symbolism and choreographed dynamism of Zhang's early masterpieces ("Raise the Red Lantern", "Hero"), "Coming Home" embraces minimalism. Cinematographer Zhao Xiaoding constructs a muted palette dominated by greys, browns and dim natural light, evoking both the drabness of the Cultural Revolution era and the emotional desolation of its survivors.

The film's mise-en-scène is marked by enclosed spaces – stairwells, narrow corridors and the family home – which function as visual metaphors for confinement and psychological entrapment. Zhang's use of static framing and long takes amplifies the sense of temporal suspension, suggesting a world frozen between remembrance and forgetting. The recurring motif of doors and thresholds underscores the emotional distance between characters: Lu Yanshi's homecoming is perpetually deferred, both spatially and emotionally.

Performance and Embodied Memory

The performances of Gong Li and Chen Daoming constitute the film's emotional core. Gong Li's portrayal of Feng Wanyu transcends mere pathology; her selective amnesia becomes an embodiment of collective trauma. Her gestures – hesitant, repetitive, and constrained – articulate a form of bodily memory that persists even when cognitive recall has failed. In contrast, Chen's Lu Yanshi performs devotion as ritual, a repetitive act of care that affirms love's endurance amid erasure.

Their relationship functions as an allegory for the nation itself: Lu represents the persistence of historical truth, while Feng embodies the wilful or involuntary forgetting that accompanies survival. Zhang's direction avoids melodrama, allowing silence and gesture to communicate what language cannot. The absence of recognition between the couple thus becomes a site of ethical inquiry – can reconciliation occur without remembrance?

Narrative Structure and Temporal Dislocation

The film's temporal structure reinforces its thematic preoccupation with loss. By beginning after Lu's release from prison, Zhang displaces the political violence to the background, focusing instead on its psychic aftermath. Time in "Coming Home" is fragmented and recursive; letters, dreams and songs serve as mnemonic devices attempting to restore continuity. Yet each attempt at recovery collapses under the weight of absence.

This non-linear temporality aligns with trauma theory – particularly Cathy Caruth's conception of trauma as an "unclaimed experience", one that resists integration into narrative memory. Feng's amnesia can thus be read as a cinematic manifestation of collective repression, while Lu's unwavering attempts to reintroduce himself signify the ethical imperative to remember.

Sound, Silence and the Ethics of Remembering

Composer Chen Qigang's minimalist score underscores the film's meditative tone. The sparse piano melodies function less as emotional cues than as echoes of memory itself – faint, incomplete and cyclical. Silence, conversely, operates as a structural principle. Zhang allows moments of stillness to stretch uncomfortably long, forcing the audience to inhabit the same suspended temporality as his characters.

In doing so, the film poses an ethical question central to post-revolutionary Chinese cinema: How can a society confront the violence of its past without reopening unhealed wounds? "Coming Home" does not offer resolution. Instead, it constructs a space for mourning – an acknowledgment of what has been lost and what must still be remembered.

Conclusion

"Coming Home" represents Zhang Yimou's evolution from visual formalism to psychological realism. By eschewing spectacle, he achieves a film of quiet devastation and moral clarity. The story's intimacy – a husband and wife divided by memory – becomes a universal allegory for historical trauma. Gong Li's fragmented consciousness and Chen Daoming's patient fidelity embody the dialectic of forgetting and remembrance that defines modern China's relationship to its past.

Ultimately, "Coming Home" is less a story of reunion than a requiem for memory – a cinematic elegy that asks whether love alone can withstand the erasures of history.

Shanghai Triad (4 Stars)

This is the seventh film directed by Zhang Yimou, made in 1995. As in his previous films, Gong Li is the lead actress.

The film shows seven days in the life of a 14-year-old peasant boy called Shuisheng. His uncle summons him to Shanghai to work for a criminal gang. He's assigned to be the personal servant of the boss's mistress Xiao Jinbao, a beautiful but haughty night club singer.

After a failed attempt to assassinate the boss, the gang's elite takes refuge on a small island, along with Xiao Jinbao and Shuisheng. In the claustrophobic environment deceit and betrayal lead to internal battles within the gang, while Shuisheng looks on with wide eyes, hardly able to understand what's unfolding around him.

It's a gangster movie, but it can't be compared with films like "The Godfather". It's much more emotional, and the intricate plot subtleties are spellbinding. It deservedly won several international awards. Unlike Zhang Yimou's previous films, it wasn't banned in China.

To Live (4½ Stars)

This is the sixth film made by Zhang Yimou in 1994. Like the previous five films, it features Gong Li as the lead actress, although the lead actor Ge You plays a more important role. He was well known for playing comedy roles, but his serious role in "To Live" has since been praised as his best performance.

Ge You plays Xu Fugui, a young man who's inherited a sizable fortune. He's also a gambling addict. Despite the protests of his wife Jiazhen (Gong Li) he gambles away everything he has, including his family home.

Before losing his money Fugui had never worked. Now he turns his hobby into a career. He entertains people with shadow puppets.

The film is told in episodes from the 1940's to the 1970's. It shows the life of Fugui, Jiazhen, their children and their grandchildren under the rise of Communism. Neither Fugui nor his wife are politically motivated. They don't care who's in charge and do what they're told.

Does the story have a happy ending? Of course not. Zhang Yimou's films are tragedies.

This time there was a bigger budget, leading to the use of more locations. Zhang Yimou requested the Chinese army to send him extras, and they gave him 2000 extras. This makes the war scenes spectacular.

I would have given the film five stars, but I found the opening scenes with the gambling silly. Maybe I just don't understand gambling. How can anyone throw away everything he has when he has a beautiful wife and daughter at home? Interestingly, Zhang Yimou agrees with me. In a later interview he said that he should have omitted Fugui's decline and started the film with his life as a poor puppeteer.

"To Live" won a series of awards, including three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. Nevertheless, it was banned in China, which hardly surprises me. Zhang Yimou claims to have shown China's cultural revolution neutrally, as it was, but this includes the bad as well as the good. After the film was released abroad, Zhang Yimou was barred from making films for five years, but fortunately this decision was taken back.

The Story of Qiu Ju (4 Stars)

In my review of "Codename Cougar" I claimed that it was Zhang Yimou's only film set in the present day. I was wrong. His fifth film, "The Story of Qiu Ju", made in 1992, is another present day film. In some ways it's also untypical for his films, even though it deals with themes that are common in his early films.

Qinglai is a peasant who grows red chilis. He wants to build a small wooden barn to store them on his land, but the local chief doesn't allow it. He says that the land is only for growing, not for any sort of buildings. It comes to an argument. Qinglai says that the chief can only grow hens, referring to the fact that he's only had daughters. The chief kicks Qinglai in the groin, injuring him so badly that he's unable to work for two months.

This is where the film starts. Qinglai himself is a humble man and accepts what the chief did to him. His wife Qiu Ju demands justice. She complains to the local constable, who tells the chief to pay Qinglai's medical bills and give him 200 yuan to compensate for lost earnings. That's only $30, but in rural China it was considered adequate. For Qiu Ju it's not about the money. She wants the chief to apologise, but he insists that Qinglai deserved the kick. She appeals to the county, who pass the same judgement. Then she travels to the (unnamed) large city, who increase the compensation to 250 yuan, but she's still not happy.

The film is about a woman's stubbornness in the face of Chinese bureaucracy. The film historian Tony Rayns points out that the Chinese bureaucrats are portrayed as untypically friendly, which is probably the reason why "The Story of Qiu Ju" was the first of Zhang Yimou's films that wasn't banned in China.

The film seems to have a lot of extras, but they aren't voluntary participants. It was filmed in busy streets with hidden cameras. That probably wouldn't be legal in America. In the 1990's the Chinese film industry was in a state of turmoil, which meant that nobody knew what was allowed and what wasn't.

Gong Li is the pregnant woman in the red coat. She was a famous film star in China, but nobody recognised her dressed as a peasant.

It's a very slow moving film. For the first 30 minutes I didn't enjoy it. It seemed boring. Then it grew on me, as I began to appreciate the film's subtleties.

Codename Cougar (3 Stars)

I recently bought a Blu-ray box set with eight films that Zhang Yimou directed with the actress Gong Li. At the time I thought it was all their collaborations, but when I checked I found that one film was missing: "Codename Cougar", Zhang Yimou's second film, made in 1989. As far as I can tell, it's never been released on disc. It's a curiosity. Gong Li won awards for her performance, but Zhang Yimou himself disowned it, calling it his worst film. After some searching I managed to download a copy, which seems to have been ripped from television. As you know, I don't approve of film piracy, but I make an exception when a film is otherwise unavailable.

The film is a political thriller set in the present, i.e. 1989. That sets it apart from all Zhang Yimou's other films, which take place in the past. A private plane carrying a senior businessman is hijacked when it's flying from Taiwan to South Korea. The hijackers foolishly fire a gun in the cockpit, damaging the landing gear. The plane is forced to make a crash landing in mainland China.

What's interesting is the way the governments of China and Taiwan are forced to work together to solve the crisis. China sends soldiers to the scene, but a senior Taiwanese diplomat leads the negotiations.

It's obvious that corners were cut to reduce the budget. Scenes are linked by a series of still shots to prevent the use of extras. It's not a bad film, but it's not my taste.

Raise the Red Lantern (4½ Stars)

Introduction

Zhang Yimou's "Raise the Red Lantern" (1991) is a visually stunning yet emotionally harrowing portrait of power, desire, and control in a rigidly patriarchal world. Set in 1920's Republican-era China, the film follows Songlian, a young woman who becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy feudal lord and finds herself trapped in a system of ritualized domination. Beneath its exquisite surfaces, the film offers a profound critique of social hierarchy and the persistence of Confucian patriarchy. Through its careful use of color, space, and ritual, "Raise the Red Lantern" reveals how beauty and tradition can serve as instruments of oppression.

Plot Synopsis

After her father's death leaves her family destitute, nineteen-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) agrees to marry a rich master, becoming his fourth wife. Upon arriving at the vast, stone-walled estate, she learns that each wife lives in a separate courtyard, and that the Master's favor is signified by the lighting of red lanterns outside the chosen wife's quarters each night.

Initially, Songlian believes she can manipulate this system, but she soon discovers a world steeped in deception and rivalry.

First Mistress, Yuru, is resigned and embittered, holding onto seniority but little affection.

Second Mistress, Zhuoyun, feigns kindness while scheming to undermine others.

Third Mistress, Meishan, a former opera singer, is passionate and rebellious, pursuing a secret affair with the family doctor.

Songlian's own attempts at self-assertion – including a false pregnancy meant to win attention – spiral into tragedy when Meishan's infidelity is discovered and punished by execution. Isolated and powerless, Songlian descends into madness. As a new fifth mistress arrives, the red lanterns are lit once more, restoring the appearance of order. The cycle continues.

Symbolism and Visual Style

The Red Lanterns

The film's central symbol, the red lantern, embodies the seductive face of power. Lit outside a wife's quarters to mark the Master's favor, the lanterns appear warm and intimate yet signify ownership and control. They represent both privilege and imprisonment, their glow a reminder that desire has been institutionalized. When Songlian is punished and her lanterns are covered in black cloth, the extinguished light becomes a symbol of erasure – a literal and emotional darkness.

Color and Composition

Zhang Yimou's visual precision transforms every frame into a tableau of meaning. The film's dominant red palette – vibrant yet oppressive – connotes both passion and danger. The cold gray architecture of the compound heightens the contrast, underscoring how ritual beauty conceals emotional sterility.

The camera's symmetrical framing and static long shots evoke a sense of confinement. The courtyard's geometry traps the characters within invisible lines of power, and the repetition of movement and color mirrors the monotony of their ritualized lives.

Architecture and Space

The mansion functions as a visual metaphor for the patriarchal system. Its walls are high, its courtyards uniform, and its servants omnipresent. Women occupy separate, near-identical quarters, creating proximity without intimacy. The film's frequent use of doorways, windows, and screens to frame characters within frames suggests surveillance and fragmentation – a world where private emotion is constantly on display but never free.

Sound and Silence

The soundtrack relies heavily on silence and repetition. The sound of ritual – servants' footsteps, bells, and chants – replaces music, reinforcing the mechanical nature of life within the compound. When music does appear, as in Meishan's operatic singing, it becomes a fleeting act of resistance, silenced as swiftly as it begins.

Cultural and Historical Context

Confucian Patriarchy and Feudal Hierarchy

The Master's household represents a microcosm of Confucian social order, where hierarchy, ritual, and obedience define every relationship. The Master is an unseen but omnipotent authority – the patriarch whose approval determines identity and worth. The wives' ranked positions mirror the Confucian emphasis on structure and stability at the cost of individuality.

Zhang Yimou contrasts this static order with Songlian's modern sensibility. Educated and self-aware, she embodies a generation caught between feudal submission and modern independence. Her suffering reveals how outdated moral codes continued to dominate even as China entered a new century.

The "Three Obediences and Four Virtues"

Traditional gender ideals in Confucian thought dictated that women obey their fathers, their husbands and their sons. In the film, the wives' entire existence revolves around pleasing the Master. Their rivalry is not natural but socially engineered, ensuring that they police each other instead of challenging authority. Even rebellion, such as Meishan's affair, is framed as moral corruption rather than an act of human longing.

The four virtues are morality, proper speech, modest appearance and hard work.

Ritual as Control

Zhang's portrayal of ritual – from lantern lighting to meal service – illustrates how repetition sustains power. Ritual replaces morality; appearance replaces sincerity. The system endures because everyone participates in it, willingly or not. The film thus becomes a critique not only of patriarchy but of any ideology that disguises domination as harmony.

Political Resonance

Although set in the 1920s, the film's critique extends beyond its historical setting. Upon release, "Raise the Red Lantern" was banned in mainland China, partly because its depiction of ritualized obedience was seen as an implicit commentary on contemporary authoritarianism. The Master's invisible control and the household's blind conformity evoke the mechanisms of political as well as domestic power.

Conclusion: Beauty as a Mask for Tyranny

Raise the Red Lantern is a masterwork of cinematic irony – a film that uses beauty to expose brutality. Zhang Yimou's meticulous aesthetics lure the viewer into admiring the very system that destroys his characters. The elegance of the lanterns, the symmetry of the architecture, and the precision of ritual all serve as metaphors for how oppression disguises itself as order.

Songlian's tragedy lies in her awareness: she sees the system's cruelty yet cannot escape it. Her descent into madness marks both defeat and protest – a final refusal to participate in the game of submission. The closing image, as a new mistress enters and the lanterns glow once again, freezes the story in perpetual repetition. The household – and the society it represents – endures through ritualized renewal of suffering.

In the end, "Raise the Red Lantern" transcends its historical context to become a universal meditation on the seductions of power and the cost of conformity. It is a film about how tradition, beauty, and control intertwine – and how, beneath the red glow of ritual, human freedom flickers and fades.

Ju Dou (4 Stars)

Like most of Zhang Yimou's films, "Ju Dou" is a tragedy. That's a forgotten genre nowadays. Putting it in simple terms, a tragedy is a film that doesn't have a happy ending. The main character usually dies, but not by sacrificing himself as a hero. His death is a failure. His death is often the result of character flaws. The best known tragedies were written by William Shakespeare, in particular "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet".

Ju Dou is a woman who's been bought as a wife by Yang Jinshan, a merchant who owns a dye mill. His previous two wives died young, and it's implied that he was responsible for their deaths. He blamed them for not giving him a son. Now it's Ju Dou's turn to satisfy him. He's cruel to her, beating her when he's not satisfied with her work in the mill.

Yang Tianqing, Yang Jinshan's nephew, works in the mill. He's devoted to his uncle, but he's shocked when he sees how Ju Dou is beaten every day. She asks him to kill her husband, but he refuses. Nevertheless, they have an affair, and she becomes pregnant with his baby. Yang Jinshan thinks the baby is his, and they don't contradict him. Tinbai is the heir, and they don't tell him who his real father is.

In a typical Hollywood film things would be sorted out in the end. Ju Dou and her lover would find happiness. But this is a tragedy. Everything ends with sadness and death. That's the only spoiler I'll give you.

“Ju Dou” is a critique of feudal patriarchy and moral hypocrisy. The vividly colored dye vats contrast with the bleakness of the characters' lives, symbolising both passion and entrapment. The film's lush cinematography and restrained performances heighten its emotional intensity, making it a haunting tale of love crushed by social constraints.

Red Sorghum (4½ Stars)

I was lucky enough to discover this Blu-ray box set last week. It was released in 2023, but I missed it because it was only released in Australia. It's now being offered for horrendous prices on Amazon's web sites, but I was lucky enough to find it for sale on Ebay, direct from Australia. The Blu-rays are locked to Region B, which isn't a problem for me, because Australia is in the same Blu-ray region as Europe. It's only a problem for American customers.

Note that Greenland is also in Region B. If Donald Trump succeeds in taking over Greenland, it will cause problems for Blu-ray sales. I'm betting that he never thought about that.

Of the eight films in the collection, I only owned one as an individual Blu-ray. I had two of the films on DVD, and I'd never seen the other five. Zhang Yimou is one of my favourite directors, so I've been looking for these five films for years. Thank you, Australia!

The box set collects the eight films that Zhang Yimou made with the actress Gong Li. "Red Sorghum" was the first film that he directed and it was Gong Li's first film as an actress. They began their careers together.

The film is told in two parts. In the first part, that takes place round about 1930. A poor woman is given in marriage to a rich leper who owns a distillery that makes sorghum wine. She doesn't love him, but her father wants her to marry him to receive a wedding gift of a black horse. It's a sad world when that's all a woman is worth. A short time later the leper is murdered, and the woman (who's never named) marries a sedan carrier. She takes over the wine making business, and becomes rich.

Nine years later the Japanese invade. The sorghum fields are cut down to make a new highway. The woman leads the resistance against the Japanese.

It's a very patriotic film. The sorghum symbolises the Chinese spirit. It grows wild, and nobody can remember who planted it. When it's cut down, it grows back. And the wine tastes so sweet.

Full River Red (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #42

I'm always excited when there's a new film directed by Zhang Yimou. He's one of my favourite directors, alongside Sion Sono and Alex de la Iglesia. It's difficult for me to put the three directors in order. Note that none of the directors are English or American. I'd put Quentin Tarantino in fourth place. However, my pleasure at seeing a new Zhang Yimou film is tarnished by it only being available for streaming, not for purchase. I hope this error will be put right soon.

The film takes place in 1146. It begins with a meeting between the prime minister of the Song Dynasty and a delegation from the Jin Dynasty. The ambassador from Jin is found murdered. The Song soldiers who were guarding him are executed, with the exception of Zhang Da. His execution is delayed, because his uncle Sun Jun is the deputy commander of the guards. Zhang Da says that he knows of a letter that the ambassador intended to give the prime minister, and he suggests that the letter's contents were the reason for the assassination. The prime minister gives Zhang Da two hours to find the letter. If he fails, he'll be executed.

The film turns into a complex mystery, revealing one conspiracy after another. In essence, it's a 12th Century courtroom drama, except the investigations aren't carried out in a closed room, but on the streets of the city. In the course of the film Sun Jun is arrested and released, promoted to head of the guards, then arrested and released again.

The film's title comes from the last words spoken by the general Yue Fei before he was executed four years previously. Only the prime minister heard the words, but he refuses to tell anyone what they were. These words were the poem "Full River Red", supposed the most famous poem in China, taught to children in elementary school.

My hair stands on end with anger, and as I lean over the railing, the rain has stopped.
I raise my eyes, let out a long cry to the heavens, my heart aching with fervour.
Thirty years of fame and glory have become dust and dirt,
Eight thousand miles of journey have become clouds and moon.
Don't let your youth become old in vain, filled with empty sorrow.
The shame of Jingkang remains;
When will the hatred of our subjects be extinguished?
Let us ride our chariots through the gap in the Helan Mountains!
We'll feast on the flesh of barbarians when hungry, and we'll drink the blood of Xiongnu when thirsty.
We'll rebuild our old country and face the heavens.

All I can say about the poem is that it seems very extreme to be taught to young children. It must be somehow linked to Chinese pride. Does modern day China trace its roots to the Song Dynasty? I'd be glad if any of my Chinese readers can answer this question. That's what the comments box is for.

Hero (5 Stars)

My mother-in-law used to say, "If you haven't held something in your hand for a year, throw it away". That was her advice to prevent a house being cluttered with unwanted items. I can see the sense in her words, but it doesn't apply to me. I haven't held my "Hero" Blu-ray disc in my hand for ten years. It would have been a tragedy if I'd thrown it away, or even sold it on Ebay. It's a wonderful film.

It has a prominent place on the top shelf in my film collection. Most of my collection (over 2000 films) is in alphabetical order, but my top shelf is reserved for films that are special to me. They're the first films I see when I look at my shelves. Why haven't I watched it all these years? I honestly don't know. I didn't think it was that long. If it weren't for my blog acting as an infallible film diary I wouldn't have known.

"Hero" is a majestic film. Despite the frequent fight scenes, it's slow and philosophical. Jet Li plays a nameless warrior. His lack of a name is significant in itself. A man doesn't become a hero to have his name remembered in history books. A true hero does what's right, even if nobody will ever know what he did.

The film takes place in 227 BC. China was divided into seven kingdoms. Qin was ruled by a tyrant who was waging war against the other six kingdoms. The nameless warrior trained for ten years to assassinate the king, but when he had victory in his grasp, he refused to carry out his mission and walked away. He came to the conclusion that it's better for China to be united under a tyrant than divided.

Calligraphy plays an important part in the film. Before challenging a rival swordsman, the nameless warrior asks him to draw the symbol for sword on an eight feet canvas. He says that there are 19 ways to draw the symbol, but there's a 20th way. By looking at the canvas he'll understand his opponent's fighting skill.

While waiting to be slain, the king meditates on the canvas.

"I have come to a realisation. This scroll contains no secrets of swordsmanship. What it reveals is the highest ideal.

In the first stage, man and sword become one; even a blade of grass can be used as a lethal weapon.

In the next stage, the sword resides not in the hand, but in the heart; even without a weapon the warrior can slay his enemy from 100 paces.

But the ultimate ideal is when the sword disappears altogether. The warrior embraces all around him. The desire to kill no longer exists. Only peace remains".

That's a lot to learn from a painted symbol. The King of Qin may look like a tyrant, but he's a very spiritual man. He embraces death, not knowing he will be spared.

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Cliff Walkers (3 Stars)

Zhang Yimou is one of my favourite directors. That makes this film all the more disappointing. It's a spy thriller that takes place in Manchuria in the 1930's. Four special agents, trained in Russia, are trying to smuggle an escaped prisoner over the border. There was a notorious Japanese prison, in which the inmates were tortured. Japan wanted to make a good impression to the international community, so the prison was demolished and all the inmates were murdered. Except for one escapee. The special agents want him to testify to the Japanese atrocities.

My trouble with the film is that I don't really know the characters. There's very little character development. The male characters are interchangeable, which is intensified by their identical clothing. I wanted to sympathise with the female agent who wanted to rescue her children, but she just isn't interesting enough.

What struck me is how difficult it is to be a spy. There are double agents on both sides, so nobody knows who he can trust.

The film hasn't been released in England or America. There's a German Blu-ray which can be watched with German subtitles or dubbing. I recommend the dubbing, because the subtitles are awkwardly placed, on the bottom edge of the picture. It makes them difficult to read, especially when snow is lying on the ground.

Cliff Walkers (4 Stars)

This is an unusual film for Zhang Yimou. When has he ever made a film with a car chase? It's a spy thriller set in Manchuria in the early 1930's. At that time it was ruled by a government under Japanese control. There was a notorious Japanese prison in Manchuria where Chinese patriots were tortured and killed. The Japanese were worried that the atrocities would be exposed, so they destroyed the prison, but there was a single survivor. Four elite Chinese agents, trained in Russia, are dropped into Manchuria by parachute. Their mission is to find the prison's survivor and smuggle him back into Russia.

The Chinese team splits up into two teams of two. The first team discovers that their mission has been compromised by a traitor. Their contacts are Manchurian agents. They escape from the agents, but they have no way of informing the other team of the trap.

There's a senior agent in the Manchurian Special Task Force assigned to track the Chinese teams, so there are intrigues on both sides. Nobody knows who he can trust. The 1930's were dark days in China.

I like the film, but I admit to having some problems with it. I was in the same position as the Chinese spies. I didn't know who was on which side. I'll understand it better the next time I watch it. The main impression I take from it is the chilly atmosphere of towns and forests permanently covered by snow.

The film isn't available on disc in England or America, but it can be watched on Amazon Prime Video in America.

House of Flying Daggers (5 Stars)

After watching "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" yesterday I'm in the mood to watch more Chinese films. There will be several in the next few weeks, but I thought I would start with "House of Flaying Daggers", one of the most beautiful films ever made. Some people might call it overkill. Whatever is happening, however brutal the fights might be, everything is colour-coordinated. The surrounding beauty distracts from the blood flowing. The battles are like a beautifully staged ballet, a dance of death in the forests and meadows.

The year is 859 AD. Leo and Jin are two army captains. They work together and they're close friends. They've been given the job of stopping a band of rebels called the Flying Daggers. The leader has been killed, but the group is carrying on without him. There's a rumour that Mei, the daughter of the former leader, is now working in a local brothel. Leo arrests her, but Jin frees her from prison, pretending to be sympathetic to the Flying Daggers. Together they travel north towards the hiding place of the Flying Daggers. Leo follows them with a small band of soldiers, waiting to attack the rebels when they've been uncovered.

Jin pretends to be in love with Mei so that she'll trust him, but as they travel through the beautiful scenery their emotions can't be tamed. The two fall in love with one another, and Jin feels tempted to give up his loyalty to the Emperor for her sake. But Mei already has a lover, a jealous lover that she hasn't seen for three years. Leo is an undercover agent planted in the government by the Flying Daggers. The lines between duty and romance are blurred. When the former friends draw swords against one another, is it because they're political enemies or rival lovers?

Zhang Yimou draws his inspiration from Shakespeare. His love stories are tragedies. We can't expect a happy ending. Those who love are doomed to die. This is a film that will make you cry, while you're still overwhelmed by the scenic beauty and the majestic music.

Success Rate:  + 5.7

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Curse of the Golden Flower (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #19

This is one of the most beautiful films ever made, but it has a different style to "House of Flying Daggers", made by Zhang Yimou two years earlier. The atmosphere in "Curse of the Golden Flower" is much more intense and foreboding. It's obvious from the opening scenes that only bad can come.

Ping is the Emperor of a large dynasty. (In the original Chinese he's only called a king, but I'll keep to the English translation). The film takes place in the Tang Dynasty, some time between 618 AD and 907 AD. He used to be a lowly captain, but he rose to the level of Emperor after marrying the daughter of the King of Liang. He has three sons: Wan, Jai and Yu. Wan was born to his first wife, Jai and Yu to his present wife. Jai is his official heir, but Wan is his favourite son.

The palace is run efficiently, presenting a perfect harmony to the world, but the Emperor's family is far from perfect. The Empress is having an affair with her step-son, Wan. The Emperor knows about it, so he's arranged for poison to be mixed in with her regular medication for anaemia. After the Empress's death he intends to make Wan his heir.

Years ago the Emperor, while still a captain, exiled his first wife so that he could marry the daughter of the King of Liang. He expected her to die, but she married the Emperor's chief physician. He doesn't know she's still alive, because she lives in a house outside of the palace. Her daughter is a servant of the Empress, and Wan has fallen in love with her, not realising that she's his sister.

It's difficult for me to write about this film without giving away too much. All I can say is that it's an epic in the true sense of the word. There are only a few action scenes, but they're exquisitely filmed. The suspense and the emotional content are in perfect balance. The palace shown in the film is the biggest film set ever built. Over 4,000 extras were used. It's a film that has to be seen to be believed.

Success Rate:  - 0.3

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House of Flying Daggers (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #22

Visually, this is the most beautiful film I've ever seen. I'm not just referring to Zhang Ziyi, although I admit that her beauty is stunning. The film's background is perfectly crafted, indoors and outdoors, whatever is taking place in the foreground.

The Tang Dynasty is corrupted and disliked by the general populace. There's a rebel group called the Flying Daggers, which steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Two police captains, Leo and Jin, have been given ten day to identify and arrest the leader of the Flying Daggers. Their only lead is a blind girl who dances in a local tea house. She's known to be a member of the Flying Daggers. To gain her trust Leo arrests her, and then Jin frees her. Jin and Mei head northwards to rendezvous with the rest of the group.

It's a complicated plot. There are multiple levels of deception. Nobody is who he initially seems to be. Even the Flying Daggers themselves turn out to be less idealistic than they're presented in the opening scenes. They're cunning and ruthless, willing to kill anyone who gets in their way.

At its core, this is a love story. Jin and Mei fall in love as they travel together, even though they're both deceiving one another. Mei is torn between Jin and a lover in the Flying Daggers that she hasn't seen for three years. It's difficult to write anything else without giving away spoilers. All I'll say is that the final battles are beautifully filmed. You've never seen a film like this before.

In the north there is a beauty, peerless and independent.
One look from her will overthrow a city, another look will overthrow a nation.
It's not important to know whether a city or a nation will be overthrown,
Because such a beauty will never be seen again.

Success Rate:  + 5.7

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Flowers of War (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #58

This is an untypical film for Zhang Yimou, who's one of my favourite directors. Usually I associate him with lavish historical films that take place in the ancient days of China. This is a true story set in Nanking in 1937. He's made other films set in recent times, such as "Under the Hawthorn Tree", but they're always visually beautiful films. This is an ugly film, necessitated by the terrible circumstances portrayed. It wouldn't be appropriate to show noble warriors fighting in beautiful fields offset against hills and valleys. Here we have Japanese soldiers slaughtering innocent civilians in the ruins of a once magnificent city.

Or maybe there is beauty in the film, even if it's not immediately apparent. The film is called "Flowers of War". That signifies beauty in the middle of ugliness. The beauty is supplied by the elegant prostitutes from the Jade Paradise brothel.

Or maybe it's supplied by the young convent schoolgirls. The girls have a different type of beauty, based on their natural looks, not makeup and expensive clothing.

Which do you prefer? I don't think it's necessary to choose. What's more beautiful, a rose or an orchid? I don't want to choose. I want to have both flowers side by side.

I consider this to be Christian Bale's best film. I know that many of his fans will disagree with me. To them I suggest that they watch their personal favourite back to back with this film. It's not just about the story. I think he displays a fascinating depth of emotions in his development from an immoral, selfish man to a noble hero.

That's the film's theme. It shows how a bad man can learn to do good things. Christian Bale plays John Miller, an undertaker who visits a Catholic cathedral in Nanking to bury the priest. When he finds that there's no money, he refuses to do his job. He plans to leave the city as soon as possible to save his life. The next day, Japanese soldiers break into the cathedral and try to rape the schoolgirls. He pretends to be a priest and orders the Japanese to leave. From then on it becomes his mission to help the girls to escape unharmed.

The story is complicated by the arrival of a group of prostitutes. After the destruction of their brothel they seek refuge in the cathedral. The schoolgirls hate the prostitutes as evil women, while the prostitutes look down on them as silly little girls. John has to mediate between them.

"No matter what wars or disasters happen in history, what surrounds these times is life, love, salvation and humanity. I hope those things are felt in this story. The human side of the story was more important to me than the background of the Nanjing massacre. Human nature, love and sacrifice – these are the things that are truly eternal. For me, the event is the historical background of the film. But the enduring question of the story is how the human spirit is expressed in wartime". (Zhang Yimou, 2011).

Success Rate:  - 1.0

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Shadow (5 Stars)

I say that a good film is a film that I want to watch at least three times. I don't add any time frame to that definition. Sometimes it takes me years to get to the third viewing. In the case of "Shadow", it only took me 18 months.

"Shadow" is a film that's at the same time typical for Zhang Yimou and totally different. The pace is slow and deliberate, just as we know from his previous films. There are prolonged scenes of conversation and Chinese ritual before any action takes place. What makes it different is the lack of colours. If I understand correctly, the film was shot in black and white, after which limited amounts of colour were digitally added. To be precise, the only colours added were blood and the skin tones of the actors.

The film is a piece of art. Every frame is expertly crafted. The monochrome imagery doesn't make the film look dull, it makes the film look vibrant and alive.

The plot itself seems simple at first, but as it progresses there are multiple layers of deceit and deception. The King of Pei seems to be inactive because of cowardice, but he's been secretly scheming to free the city of Jing. Ziyu, the Commander of Pei, has been hiding in a cave for more than a year, carefully manipulating people so that he can become the new king.

It's a brilliant film, and I expect to watch it again some time soon. Just let me finish my top 100 countdown first.

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