"Raise the Red Lantern"
may bring to mind "Ju Dou," as both are by the same filmmaker (Zhang
Yimou), feature the same star (Gong Li) and have themes dealing with traditional
Chinese sexism.Review:
"Raise the Red Lantern"
may bring to mind "Ju Dou," as both are by the same filmmaker (Zhang
Yimou), feature the same star (Gong Li) and have themes dealing with traditional
Chinese sexism.
But "Raise the Red Lantern" is unique, essentially in its detailed look at the hazards of polygamy and the tragedies that ensue when squabbling between wives accelerates to unexpected proportions.
An educated young woman (Gong
Li) consents to become the fourth wife of a wealthy man to relieve financial
pressures on her stepmother in pre-Revolutionary China. After surviving initial
conflicts with household servants and the master's other spouses (who refer
to each other as sisters), she discovers that there are layers of conflict and
character which remain hidden by first impressions but which reveal the darkness
and corruption of the world around her all the more when brought to light.
Raise the Red Lantern is one
of the more sublimely beautiful and openly disturbing films of the 1990s. It
is also the best work to date turned in by the actress/director combination
of Gong Li and Zhang Yimou -- and this includes other impressive films like
Ju Dou and To Live. Raise the Red Lantern is one of those all-too-rare motion
pictures capable of enthralling an audience while they're watching it, then
haunting them for hours (or days) thereafter. With its simple story and complex
themes and emotions, Raise the Red Lantern hints at the kind of film a great
director like Ingmar Bergman might have made had he attempted a story set in
mainland China.
The fourth wife of the rich
old man comes to live in his house against her will. She has been educated,
and thinks herself ready for the wider world, but her mother betrays her, selling
her as a concubine, and soon her world is no larger than the millionaire's vast
house. Its living quarters are arrayed on either side of a courtyard. There
is an apartment for each of the wives. She is quietly informed of the way things
work here. A red lantern is raised each night outside the quarters of the wife
who will be honored by a visit from the master.
Color isn't just important to Zhang Yimou. It's his leading lady. In "Raise the Red Lantern," the Chinese director selects from a stirring palette of glowing reds, subtle yellows and twilight grays. There isn't an arbitrary hue in the movie. In purely aesthetic terms, "Raise the Red Lantern" is breathtaking.
Raise the Red Lantern.; The Story of
Qiu Ju
by John Dragon Young
Excerpt: "Other than the usual anthropological
and sociological treatments, the study of women in Chinese history has yet
to be confronted by historians (Jonathan Spence's The Death of Woman Wang,
1978, is perhaps a rare exception). We may know plenty about arranged marriages
or how the subjection of women was intritutionalized, but, more often than
not, Chinese women are depicted as one-dimensional beings: victims of a male-dominated
social order who occasionally find escape by inflicting pain on others. The
classic figures are the Empress Dowager Cixi and Madam Mao, Jiang Qing. But
how did their inner worlds look? What were their psychological orientations,
especially toward the Chinese male? Were they cunning, suspicious, and deceitful
because these are traits of the Chinese female psyche?
"These two films by Zhang Zimou...provide some of the answers..."
Actor/Actress Info: