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ALL REGION DVD - KOREAN IMPORT - WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES - NTSC.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a beautiful, sumptuously filmed epic which tackles a number of difficult issues around gender, identity and love. It hasn't dated as it deals with universal issues. Watch it if you can.
Format:DVD
I saw this movie for the first time ages ago on a video. Always wanted a DVD and could never find a copy. Found this copy and snapped it up. It comes from China but has English subtitles so no problems playing the movie and enjoying it. It is about a son of a prostitute who is apprenticed to a theatre company to learn to perform in Chinese Opera. He gets cast as the leading lady (men play women in trad opera) and this affects his development so he becomes unsure of his own gender/identity. He falls in love with his friend who plays the leading man in their company. The leading man disregards this and gets married. The triangle relationship of the two friends/lovers and the wife is explored through the course of their lives. They live through the Japanese invasion, the Communist revolution, the cultural revolution, and into a time of reform (early 1980s when the rigid rules in mainland China are being relaxed a little). Amongst everything else that is explored is the issue of what is art and artistic integrity (and how these relate to personal integrity). This is almost like the movie becoming a commentary on itself because the movie should be tragic but often feels like melodrama. So the question of artistic integrity applies to the movie itself as well as to the characters' concerns about how to do Opera under Communism. The movie is brave for raising the question about itself but I don't know that it satisfies me in the end. I think all said and done it is just melodrama rather than tragedy and thus just a good movie rather than a great movie. I loathed 'Schindler's List' (Spielberg movie about the Holocaust) because it makes tragedy into melodrama and I find that offensive. But I think 'Farewell My Concubine' is a movie with greater integrity than 'Schindler's List' so it may not be great but it is damn good all the same. It provides lots to think about! And if you want aesthetic pleasure the cast include some very beautiful men and women (follow your preference) and the scene dressing is gorgeous. Something to watch again and again.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This was looking like the great movie it had been reviewed by critics as being, at least till it got to about the half-way mark. Then for reasons that eluded me it stopped dead in its tracks, froze, and nothing I tried doing would advance it any further. I ejected the DVD dozens of times, advanced forward to that relevant chapter, but nothing doing. I tried skipping that chapter by selecting the next chapter on the menu list of chapters, pressed the "Play" button, but nothing doing. I switched the DVD player off and then on again, put the disk in, and began watching from the start....but...you guessed it. By the way nothing wrong with my DVD player. But it almost seemed as though the disk had simply run out of recording space!
Big disappointment and waste of money (not the movie itself mind you; but the experience of getting a dud disk!)
Big disappointment and waste of money (not the movie itself mind you; but the experience of getting a dud disk!)
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