| Miramax | Release Date: April 1, 1991 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
17
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
|
Critic Reviews
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]
Even if it were not physically beautiful -- and Ju Dou is as enthralling to look at as any Chinese film the festival has shown -- it would hold you: Its love story is as compelling as its politics, though not nearly so tragic. [05 Feb 1991, p.D8]
Ju Dou has an attention to detail, the “mise en scene” of set dressing and filming of an ancient, human-and-animal-powered dye works, a world of folk medicine, village gossip, rites and traditions, that raised the bar for the period pieces of Zhang and Chen, their contemporaries and the Chinese filmmakers to follow. And that attention to detail reminds us that nothing is on screen by accident.
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A beautifully directed melodrama similar to Hollywood pictures of the golden era. [22 Dec 1991, p.5C]
The gifted Zhang Yi-mou directed this gripping and colorful drama, which mingles beauty and perversity in equal proportions. [15 Mar 1991, p.12]
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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Visually stunning, with ravishing uses of color and beautifully modulated lap dissolves, Ju Dou may not be the most formally striking Chinese film I’ve seen...but it certainly is the most effective and dramatic in terms of commercial moviemaking, both as spectacle and as story telling.
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The picture is a rip-roaring melodrama, a tale of lust, murder and revenge, rendered in broad strokes and vibrant hues that make Hollywood Technicolor look almost timid. [12 Apr 1991, p.C]
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 sense of visual texture is vivid. The cast performs as openly and energetically as if they were making the film for a Western audience. [03 May 1991, p.21]
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