CommentsXp
Best movie ever!
Breakinger
A Brilliant Conflict
Asad Almond
A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Philippa
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
restless-2
Having read the entries in the IMDb forum, I was really looking forward to watching this movie--what a disappointment! The movie's cast was mainly Chinese but apart form the very last scene (3 years later) and the banquet scene I could not see anything Chinese in it. Everyone seemed to be talking all the time, rather like in an American movie.And why does everyone have to speak English? Don't they speak Chinese in China? Not even the pictures were just marginally as powerful as in most Chineese films I have watched.As the end credits rolled across the screen I realized--Pearl S- Buck. Well, I stopped reading Pearl S.Buck when I was 13 as I couldn't see any challenge in her books. They rather depict the "good old days" the way they never were.
Lee Bartholomew
(spoilers???)
Think we all new he was gonna die. But I didn't entirely care. It was the female Wu, I cared about her and the second sister who fell in love with female wu's son. It certainly is a drama. But parts of the movie and especially the end made no sense whatsoever. Has Dafoe come back as a ghost or what? I also got confused as to where in the heck the movie was based (I learned later China) They got Japan attacks close enough. Though the special effects were cheap.The english language was very annoying. Mr. Wu talked like an idiot. We laughed when we shouldn't have. His acting was the weak section of the movieIt was okay as a rental, but I'm not sure I'd buy it.6/10Quality: 6/10 Entertainment: 7/10 Replayable: 3/10
cotu
Somehow I always feel that Willem Dafoe and the films he starrs in are drastically underrated. It is also the case for this exceptional movie set in pre-comunist China. A simple, touching story about tradition and the constrains that it sometimes brings. The plot outline is simple. When Ailin turns 40, she decides it is time to retire from her husband's bed, the rich Mr. Wu. In order to do so, she finds a second wife, a woman that would take her place and pleasure the oral-sex-obsessed Mr. Wu. But the young new wife has trouble adapting to her role and the old pervert is not satisfied with her. Meanwhile, Ailin befriends her son's teacher, an American priest named Andre (Willem Dafoe). From here on, the story develops in various directions but I don't want to spoil it for you.Very good acting and directing on a classical subject.
gt-14
Anyone who liked Zhang Yimou's "Raise The Red Lantern" is a prospect for "Pavilion Of Women". Whereas "Raise The Red Lantern" explores the breaking of merely Chinese cultural taboos, "Pavilion Of Women" centres on a romance between leading characters who flout both Chinese and Western mores. This is a cross-cultural romantic story by the prolific American writer on China, Pearl S. Buck, set in the late 1930s. It has first class cross-cultural direction and acting, and was filmed on location in elegant settings of old Suzhou. It is a fine example of what the Chinese film industry can achieve in co-production.
