Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)Director: Chen Kaige
Cast: Leon Lai, Zhang Zhiyi
In Mandarin with English subtitle
Chen Kaige has not made a good film for a long time.
In 1993, his 'Farewell My Concubine' (霸王别姬) won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It is arguably one of the pinnacle achievement in Chinese cinema.
Since then, his films has been uneven, ranging from the middle road, odd, to simply awful. His 1996 'Temptress Moon' (风月) is visually beautiful, but saddled with baffling relationship between its characters. Year 2005's 'The Promise' (无极) is simply awful; a messy and laughable attempt at fantasy epic.
'Forever Enthralled' is a revisiting old material of sort, its subject matter, a biopic of Peking Opera performer Mei Lanfang,
is bound to beg comparison to the masterful 'Farewell My Concubine'. It is on this familiar ground that Chen Kaige rediscovered his form.
I see 'Forever Enthralled' as Chen's homage to artists who have given their life for the art, their sacrifice, their single-minded obsession, the risk they took for artistic innovation, their giving up of true love for career sake.
Indeed, fame comes with a price. 'Mei Lanfang does not belong to you, he does not belong to me either. He belongs to the audience' said Fu Zhifang, Mei's wife, to Meng Xiaodong (Zhang Zhiyi), Mei's lover.
Chen Kaige's homage to artistic sacrifice is told through the eyes of Mei Lanfang, his wife Fu Zhifang and Qiu Rubai, a high ranking government legal officer, who gives up his legal career to become Mei's manager, for the love of Mei's art. Qiu the manager will stop at nothing to protect Mei's artistic career, a symbol that represents obsession to the art.
The first act tells the story of the younger Mei, who launched a painful artistic duel with an old Peking Opera master he admired. Mei took bold risk to reinvent the art, and as a result defeated the old master in the duel to become the new king of the art.
Leon Lai plays the older Mei Lanfang in the next act. Now an established star, he met Meng Xiaodong (Zhang Zhiyi), a lover he eventually had to painfully leave behind for the sake of the art, as she is seen as a distraction to Mei's career. Their affair feels a tad forced and is probably a weaker link in the film.
As in 'Farewell My Concubine', this film crosses decades and plays at the backdrop of major historical events. While 'Farewell My Concubine' made a substantial historical statement with its climatic scenes set at the period of The Cultural Revolution, 'Forever Enthralled', lighter in its political tone, sets its final act during the days of the Japanese occupation of China, focusing on Mei's refusal to perform for the Japanese army.
'Forever Enthralled' is Chen Kaige's tribute to the sacrifice of artists, a fascinating and effective one at that.
* 'Forever Enthralled' is an official selection (in competition) for the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival.
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