Chen Kaige, the director of Farewell My Concubine, returns with another sumptuous, if hard to follow, film about old China. Set in the decadent 1920s, Temptress Moon tells the very complicated story of a wealthy family living on the outskirts of Shanghai. Their youngest daughter, Ruyi, is brought up as a servant to her opium-addicted father and brother. Meanwhile, her brother-in-law Zhongliang has a successful, if illegal, career seducing and blackmailing married women in the city. When he comes to Ruyi's home the two fall in love, and trouble ensues. Mostly, though, Temptress Moon is about beautiful images. The densely populated plot is basically an excuse for showing golden bells and bowls, pagoda roofs set against the moon, and richly woven carpets. More of a meditation than a movie, Temptress Moon is probably not as accessible or enjoyable as its critically acclaimed predecessor Farewell My Concubine, which may be a better place to start in the appreciation of contemporary Chinese cinema. --James DiGiovanna
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A lush, lyrical parable about the modernization of China, TEMPTRESS MOON is the story of Zhongliang (Leslie Cheung), a Shanghai gangster raised on the sumptuous rural estate of the powerful, opium-addled Pang family. As a boy, Zhongliang, promised the life of a student, becomes instead a servant for his sister and her drug-addicted husband and a playmate for Ruyi (Gong Li), the female heir to the Pang dynasty. A permanent outsider, Zhongliang escapes the painful decadence of the Pang household and becomes a smooth-talking mobster, seducing women in the jazz-saturated clubs of 1920s Shanghai, but he is forced to face his past when hired to seduce and abduct Ruyi in a criminal attempt to gain control over the now vulnerable Pang estate. What begins as a routine seduction becomes more complicated when Zhongliang finds himself unable to escape his true feelings for Ruyi and crippling memories of his painful childhood. Cinematographer Christopher Doyle revels in the eclectic visual spectacle of a tradition-bound China cracking and hatching its version of the jazz age. Li and Cheung turn in inspired performances, their palpable onscreen chemistry igniting director Chen Kaige's magnificently detailed historical epic.
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Behind closed doors… a world of forbidden desire.
This motion picture epic is the latest triumph from the critically acclaimed director of Farewell My Concubine. Praised as another masterpiece, Temptress Moon is a captivating story of a beautiful young woman, her seductive lover, and their struggle for power, passion and revenge - so shocking, it was banned in the director's own country! Highly provocative and filled with unforgettable sensual imagery, Temptress Moon is an absolutely riveting cinematic experience - don't miss it!
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