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You know the drill: college-educated Gong Li becomes the fourth wife of a bigwig in 1920s China; whichever of the four wives he spends the night with has red lanterns lit at the house; infighting ensues. Zhang’s color-coding, formal compositions and ritualized editing patterns are an uncannily lovely representation of a cultural of repression. But, dig: this central premise is absurdly contrived, and the formal, respectful treatment (by Zhang and the characters) of a ridiculously subjugative “tradition” is a much more black-humored political commentary than is ever noted.
Opens March 2 at Film Forum
Opens March 2 at Film Forum
