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Reviews Counted:26
Fresh:17
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Though it suffers from excessive length and inconsistent pacing, Summer Palace is held aloft by Hao Lei's riveting performance.
Synopsis: China, 1989 Two young lovers play out their complex, erotic, love/hate relationship against a volatile backdrop of political unrest. Beautiful Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her... [More]
Ye's back-and-forth storytelling insinuates that the lives of Yu Hong and Zhou Wei are incomplete without each other, but because their young love was never convincing in the first place, the bittersweet conclusion rings hollow.
Despite its problems, Summer Palace is still a good film thanks to [its] sweep-away moments.
It falls apart just when it was starting to pull itself together.
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.
It's one of the more memorable films in years.
The film becomes less and less involving as it spins out its excessive 140-minute running time.
The saying goes "There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college." Who knew that included actually caring about something?
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.
Like a Tolstoyan epic.
It benefits from a riveting performance by newcomer Hao, but the whole is sadly unsatisfying.
Mopey-soapy as it sometimes gets, though, this is intelligent, passionate stuff.
Search out this vivid film in a theater. Don't let the sacrifices he [Director Lou Ye] made be in vain.
Top CriticI 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.
Lou Ye's Summer Palace examines youthful idealism and its unhappy aftermath.
Top CriticIn truth, I’ve never seen so much lovemaking in an aboveground film, but the revelation, and great triumph, of Lou’s work is that these scenes are never pornographic -- that is, never separated from emotion.
Top CriticIn Yu Hong (Hao Lei), the film also has a vibrant heroine.
It can overwhelm you and puzzle and repel you, sometimes within moments.
Way too long for something with this little content.
Though made in 2006, its American release could not have been better timed.
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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September 13, 2006:
TORONTO: Reviews of "Borat," "Paris, Je T'aime," And More
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