TEMPTRESS MOON Movie Review

Feng Yue

Conceived as a sweeping romantic drama depicting years of tumultuous change in China, Chen Kaige's Temptress Moon features the stars of Chen's Farewell My Concubine, Leslie Cheung and Gong Li, as childhood friends who grow up to be adversaries in a complex test of wills involving rival gangs and rival families. Complex is the key word, since I must confess that I lost track of the plot about halfway through the film each of the two times I viewed it. Everyone agrees that Temptress Moon—photographed by Wong Kar-Wai associate Christopher Doyle—is visually lush and stunning to look at; if it weren't, I doubt that the picture ever would have made it into American theatres at all. Word has it that Temptress Moon was cut a bit for American release, but since reviews from international film festivals also allude to continuity problems, I have a feeling that any changes that may have been made here were not the primary source of audience confusion. Temptress Moon reminds you of those incomplete Michelangelo sculptures in which the carved figures are only partially freed from their marble blocks, and we are only allowed to see tantalizing portions of what might have been. Likewise, there's a beautiful epic living somewhere inside Temptress Moon, but Chen and his editor—for whatever reason—never finished freeing it from its prison.

NEXT STOP … Farewell My Concubine, Shanghai Triad, McCabe & Mrs. Miller

1996 (R) 113m/C HK Gong Li, Leslie Cheung, Kevin Lin, Xie Tian, Zhou Jie, He Saifei; D: Chen Kaige; W: Shu Kei; C: Christopher Doyle; M: Zhao Jiping. VHS, LV, Closed Caption TOU