Summer Palace (2008)

With Summer Palace, Lou Ye speaks more plainly in his own voice, tired at last of affecting Wong Kar Wai's florid style of filmmaking, though he is still treading the Wongian terrain of lovelorn melodrama.

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01/11/08

This is just the sort of film the festival should be bringing to town, because it's unlikely to show up anywhere else. Rambling and intimate, it plays like the diary of a young woman who makes many, many mistakes, most of them with men.

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04/19/07

Lou has created a remarkable portrait of a headstrong woman and a generation of Chinese that still finds itself at a crossroads in that country's history.

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05/18/06

Though made in 2006, its American release could not have been better timed.

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03/21/08

Now I don't mind movies that have the pace of a snail, but nothing freakin' happens in this movie. Nothing!

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07/22/08

It benefits from a riveting performance by newcomer Hao, but the whole is sadly unsatisfying.

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03/13/08

It can overwhelm you and puzzle and repel you, sometimes within moments.

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03/21/08

Set against the tumultuous year of 1989, this vividly colorful melodrama of Chinese youth's sex and politics links the initimate and personal with the broader social forces in intriguing, fascinating ways.

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01/28/08

I still must recommend Summer Palace, especially for the remarkably strong performance by Hao Lei as Yu Hong, the daughter of a shopkeeper in the provinces.

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01/18/08

The film becomes less and less involving as it spins out its excessive 140-minute running time.

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01/22/08