Ju Dou
1991VOTE NOW
| Miramax | Release Date: April 1, 1991 |
Summary:
In rural China, the young bride of a tyrannical owner of a silk-dyeing business finds temporary solace in the arms of her husband's nephew, but problems arise when she becomes pregnant.
Genre(s):
Drama, Romance
Runtime:
95 min
Working with Western funding and Western camera technology for the first time, Yimou also has created the most visually striking of recent Chinese films to reach this country. [15 Mar 1991, p.25]
Ju Dou is far richer and more jolting than "The Postman Always Rings Twice," which it suggests. When it comes to film noir entrapment, we have nothing on the Chinese. [05 Sep 1990, p.63p]
The plot [from the novella Fuxi fuxi by Liu Heng] has all the elements of a Hollywood melodrama of the ’40s (both The Postman Always Rings Twice and Leave Her to Heaven come to mind), and the picture is, indeed, as deliriously enjoyable as it sounds, but with the added dimension of age-old tradition forcing the characters into roles they don’t want to play.
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Directed by Zhang Yimou, Ju Dou is photographed in rich, burnished colors.
The shots are elegantly composed and the acting is similarly fine. [04 May 1991, p.E3]
The young Tianbai, Zheng Jian, is as demonic as a flesh-and-blood Michael Myers.
Yet Ju Dou is grounded in the stark reality of turn-of-the-century China, where Confucian law has governed life for generations and where adultery is punishable by ostracism or death. [19 Jul 1991, p.7]
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