Movie Description 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.
| Credits | | Cast: | Cao Cuifeng, Gong Li, He Caifei, Jin Shuyuan |
Editorial Reviews "...A beautifully crafted and richly detailed feat....[Gong] reveals unexpected sharpness as well as great depths of dignity and sorrow..." Maslin
"...A dazzling dynastic melodrama....Presented with a precise and lustrous pictorial beauty unseen in Eastern cinema since KAGEMUSHA..." Film Comment - Harlan Kennedy (11/01/1991)
"...As slow, quiet and ritualized as the life it depicts....Zhang revels in the beauty of his actresses..." Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (05/01/1992)
"...A film of astonishing beauty and terror that has the impact of a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy..." Los Angeles Times - Kevin Thomas (03/13/1992)
"...A Chinese film of voluptuous physical beauty and angry passions..." Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (03/27/1992)
4 stars out of 4 -- "The use of color is exquisite, sensual and as imaginative as Zhang's framing of shots." USA Today - Mike Clark (08/03/2007)
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