| ARP Sélection | Release Date: October 15, 1993 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
26
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Fantastic, exciting, a real cinematic/theatrical feast. [15 Oct 1993, p.I]
Farewell My Concubine is an exquisite film, subtle, well acted, deeply moving. It confirms Chen Kaige's position as a major figure on the world scene and Gu Changwei as one of the today's finest cinematographers. [09 Jan 1994]
Thanks to Chen's eye and the strong central performances, Farewell My Concubine comes together with historical resonance and stirring, full-blooded sweep. [29 Oct 1993, p.51]
Like most epics, it's vast, preposterously ambitious and destined for greatness -- a sort of Chinese Gone With the Wind. [29 Oct 1993, p.G5]
What director Chen Kaige and his superb cast give us are larger-than-life passions, betrayals, and sacrifices, unfolding before the canvas of history. [29 Oct 1993, p.AE15]
Farewell My Concubine is a work of passion and compassion, another great work by one of the so-called fifth-generation of directors who are making the Chinese cinema one of the best in the world. [29 Oct 1993, p.3F]
No movie this year has covered a larger canvas than director Chen Kaige's 2 1/2-hour spectacle. [29 Oct 1993, p.4D]
While it is a triumph on an aesthetic level – Chen’s camera glides euphorically through temples and city streets, while the costumes and sets are meticulously authentic – it falls short because it struggles to combine the observational, detached style of its first half with the dramatic tribulations of the second.
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Sharing the Palm D'Or at that year's Cannes, Farewell My Concubine is the emotional story of two childhood friends who grow up as apprentices in their much-loved opera house. With stunning set pieces and the dramatic backdrop of the revolution, Kaige captures perfectly the relationship between the two boys.
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You have to admire Chen's fearlessness in chasing the taboo subject matter, and in unblinkingly depicting the horrors of China's recent past. [29 Oct 1993]
Employing a bizarre love triangle as its base, and blessed with occasional flashes of brilliance, this melodramatic film leapfrogs among the defining moments in China's turbulent past. [29 Oct 1993]
Concubine demonstrates that Chinese films are growing by leaps and bounds in their technical sophistication, but also reveals how much they borrow from the energy and style of American cinema. [29 Oct 1993, p.C1]
The movie's larger-than-life tone is mostly justified by the quality of the performances and the theatricality of the settings. [29 Oct 1993, p.D24]
While it is a visually dazzling epic, Farewell My Concubine rarely rises above the level of a sumptuous soap opera. [22 Dec 1993, p.7B]
A seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving drama about two male Peking Opera stars and the ex-prostie who comes between them, Chen Kaige's fourth feature, Farewell to My Concubine, reps a stylistic U-turn compared with his earlier abstract parables like Life on a String and Yellow Earth.
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