| | | A Film by Zhang Yimou.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, English, French, Spanish, Subtitled, Sensormatic
This exquisite story and multiple award winner, adapted from the novel Wives and Concubines was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1992. Songlian (Gong Li), is the newest wife to a master who already supports 3 wives! Each has her own house within the closed world of the family compound, where every evening a red lantern is lit in front of the foor of the wife with whom the master chooses to sleep. Let the rivalries begin!
"...this visually stunning film offers an extraordinary view of gender, sexuality, female rivalry and bonding..." Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.com
"A near-perfect movie that often recalls the visual purity and intensity of silent films." John Hartl, Film.com
"...always engrossing." Stephen Farber, MovieLine
Editor's Note
The old master of a powerful family in 1920's China supports three wives. Each has her own house within the closed world of the family compound, where every evening a red lantern is lit in front of the door of the wife with whom the master chooses to sleep. Let the rivalries begin.
Plot Summary
When a beautiful young woman is selected to serve as concubine to an affluent man, she sadly accepts -- knowing that she has no other alternative to survive financially. Her fate, however, turns from bad to worse when her master's other wives, all older and not as attractive, callously alienate the newcomer due to their sexual jealousy.
| Features | Audio: Chinese, Mandarin Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Mgm Entertainment |
| Release Date: 7/24/2007 |
| Running Time: 125 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1991 | | Catalog ID: 108262 | | UPC: 00027616082626 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: Mandarin | | Available Audio Tracks: Chinese, Mandarin | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew | Caifei He | | Cuifen Cao | | Jingwu Ma | | Li Gong | | Fei Zhao - Cinematographer | | Fu-Sheng Chiu - Producer | | Hsiao-hsien Hou - Executive Producer | | Jiping Zhao - Original Music By | | Juiping Cao - Art Director | | Lun Yang - Cinematographer | | Naoki Tachikawa - Original Music By | | Ni Zhen - Writer | | Su Tong - Based On Novel By | | Yuan Du - Editor | | Zhang Yimou - Director |
| Awards |
Winner (1993) | | | British Academy Awards, Yimou Zhang, et. al., Best Film not in the English Language | |
Nominee (1993) | | | Independent Spirit, Yimou Zhang, Best Foreign Film | |
Nominee (1992) | | | Oscar, Raise the Red Lantern, Best Foreign Language Film | |
Winner (1991) | | | Venice Film Festival, Yimou Zhang, Silver Lion Award | |
Nominee (1991) | | | Venice Film Festival, Yimou Zhang, Golden Lion Award |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...Gong Li delivers a performance of exquisite expressiveness that, like the film itself, is unnerving in its emotional nakedness..." 03/19/1992 p.102New York Times
"...A beautifully crafted and richly detailed feat....[Gong] reveals unexpected sharpness as well as great depths of dignity and sorrow..." 03/20/1992 p.C18 Film Comment
"...A dazzling dynastic melodrama....Presented with a precise and lustrous pictorial beauty unseen in Eastern cinema since KAGEMUSHA..." 11/01/1991 p.42-4 Entertainment Weekly
"...As slow, quiet and ritualized as the life it depicts....Zhang revels in the beauty of his actresses..." 05/01/1992 p.34 Los Angeles Times
"...A film of astonishing beauty and terror that has the impact of a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy..." 03/13/1992 p.F14 Chicago Sun-Times
"...A Chinese film of voluptuous physical beauty and angry passions..." 03/27/1992 p.41 USA Today
4 stars out of 4 -- "The use of color is exquisite, sensual and as imaginative as Zhang's framing of shots." 08/03/2007 p.11D ReelViews 10 of 10
Raise the Red Lantern is one of the more sublimely beautiful and openly disturbing films of the 1990s. It is also the best work to date turned in by the actress/director combination of Gong Li and Zhang Yimou -- and this includes other impressive films like Ju Dou and To Live. Raise the Red Lantern is one of those all-too-rare motion pictures capable of enthralling audience members while they're watching it, then haunting them for hours (or days) thereafter. With its simple story and complex themes and emotions, Raise the Red Lantern hints at the kind of film a great director like Ingmar Bergman might have made had he attempted a story set in mainland China...I don't think I've ever seen a movie quite like Raise the Red Lantern, and, since I consider it to be a defining example of Chinese movie-making and one of the best films of the '90s, I doubt that I ever will again. - James Berardinelli
DVD Times 8 of 10
Zhang Yimou's Raise The Red Lantern is simply one of the most elegantly staged, perfectly lit and beautifully photographed films ever made. Every scene is meticulously framed and composed, with every single frame worthy of being hung in a picture gallery. But it is more than just a series of pretty pictures. Every image tells its own story, expressing mood, character and detail through the costumes, the set designs, the colours and the lighting...There is a touch of soap-operatics and melodrama here to be sure - they are never far from the surface in Zhang Yimou's films - but the director keeps those elements under control, allowing the sets, the colours, the lighting and most importantly Gong Li, to convey with restraint the more florid undercurrents of the source material. - Noel Megahey
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