La Légende du scorpion noir

I'm a big fan of Chinese movies, Ziyi Zhang and Shakespeare, so I was definitely looking forward to this movie. The story is inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet and does an excellent job of translating the classic to an historic setting at the end of the Tang dynasty. I especially enjoyed the reinterpretation of Hamlet's mother as Prince Wu Luan's former lover (there was always something uncomfortably incestuous in Shakespeare's original). The acting is superb with kudos to both Ziyi Zhang and You Ge for creating a pair of very complex characters as Empress and Emperor. Some of the dialog is poetic in spite of not being Shakespearean. The sets were sumptuous. And Qing Nu's song at the end was beautiful!

So where did it go wrong? Except for Qing's song, the rest of the music was annoyingly obtrusive. Most of the action scenes were stylized and shot in slow motion. And many times the annoying music was playing during the slow motion action sequences, which effectively doubled the annoyance. Only the Prince's "audition" was a meaningful, well constructed action sequence. Finally, it could have been edited better with the movie reduced by about 15 minutes. There were several scenes that just didn't make sense. For example, there is a beautiful shot of Empress Wan entering the water naked, but it has no relation to what came before or after (ok, maybe that scene doesn't need context, but it just seemed out of place).

Overall, a decent movie with flashes of brilliance but having one too many flaws to rank any higher.

"The Banquet" is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" which, I believe, is Shakespeare's most powerful literary creation, and one which has been adapted (as I count) 5 times in the silver screen (my personal fave is the version with Mel Gibson; I have yet to watch the one with Ethan Hawke). This adaptation is so loose that oftentimes it feels like it has its own originality and only drew inspiration from "Hamlet".

One of the original aspects of the film is that of the character played by Ziyi Zhang, which is a product of a revision of the original script. A revision which added quite a depth to the storyline. Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha, Miami Vice, Farewell My Concubine) was originally supposed to play Zhang Ziyi's part. Maggie Cheung (2046, Hero) was also considered for the role. Due to scheduling conflicts. When Ziyi Zhang took over the part, the script was rewritten to make the character younger. Her character is a former love interest of the Prince Wu Luan (the main character) but was later wed to the Prince's own father and eventually, to become the Empress to his uncle. Such a character has given a large amount of dramatic tension to the storyline and further complicates it, making the story more unpredictable even though it is an adaptation.

It is such a wicked delight to see Ziyi Zhang play such a dark snake of a character in this movie, a character who claims a love which is actually of self rather than something pure. Since her breakthrough in "Crouching Tiger..." she has proved time and again that the potency of her talent doesn't easily wither, and in her youth she has already made great performances, more than enough to satisfy a cinema-acting retiree. Likewise, impressive performances from Daniel Wu as the Prince Wu Luan, (the alluring & yummy) Xun Zhou as the Opheliac Qing Nu, Jingwu Ma as the wise Minister, and You Ge who also deserves much praise for playing the Emperor Li, a character who defies being generalized as black & white; a character which is richly layered with many levels. THE BANQUET is mainly drama, You do not watch this film for the Martial Arts, even though Yuen Woo Ping has a hand in the making of this film as both producer and action choreographer (I would consider Yuen Woo Ping as the living god of Martial Arts movies, having directed timeless classics like "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" & "Drunken Master" until now, & was given international spotlight when he worked as Fight choreographer of "The Matrix" movies), but you watch this movie for its beautiful storyline. Although there are moments that induce awe in some of the fight sequences, these are expected to be minimal compared to the dialogue-driving motion of the film. It may even be observed that the martial arts here is a mere icing on the cake.

Along with that icing is the amazing visuals that it presents. From flying stunts, to set designs to costumes. You can feast your eyes upon the visuals, which wakes up viewers from a possible boredom. It employs a semi-surreal style of setting.

It seems that ever since it broke into worldwide popularity, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" has opened the floodgates for Chinese dramatic epics which are done in "closed form" of movies, movies which such a forced unnatural ambiance that generally use wire-works to do fantastic martial arts feats and exaggerated vibrancy and style on sets which depict surreal environments (although this style was long used in Hong Kong, but mostly only for action epics). But this type of fantasy-like genre was getting old and it needed to be complemented with really good story lines. Such was achieved by Yimou Zhang's "Hero" (which starred Jet Li & Donnie Yen). This same surreal "closed form" style is employed by THE BANQUET.

THE BANQUET is powerful, dramatically rich, and such a masterpiece of a work, as dark and beautiful as the Shakespearean tragedy from which it is based on.

The women' death is because of the love.

The men' death is because of the women.

Desire is the measure, is the excuse.

Finally, desire is defeated to the love and the death.

In this war, the winner is … …

Beautiful clothes, lovely music and song, strange marks, tragedy character, moving story. It shows you that what Chinese' value is, what the love is, what the human' heart is. You will think deeply from your heart, you may understand the different among the cultures to express the familiar story. Think about Hamlet.

People don't understand each other, if they do, there is no one alone.

It has long bothered me that Feng Xiaogang's movies don't get U.S. releases...and so I have had to make a habit of getting them sent to me from overseas or other equally inconvenient means. Having discovered his movies while living in China several years ago, I have been eagerly awaiting the release of Ye Yan and watching its progress through "pre-production" notes on IMDb. I was a little intrepid--one of the elements I love about Feng Xiaogang's movies is their ability to create inordinate beauty in contemporary settings that many would not see the beauty in...and I knew this was to be a film of another era. (In truth, I feared a little that Feng was going the way of Zhang YiMou--from the extraordinary into the traditional, beautiful, but traditional.) But I also love Feng's cultural, historical, and linguistic layering--and what better basis for that can their be but Hamlet? (Noting for fairness sake that I am an English Professor, and love Hamlet above all other Elizabethan dramas.) However, this film is, while traditional in setting, still extraordinary. The use of masks and movement play with Shakespearean notions of the play within the play/all the world's a stage. And, for me at least, this is the most impressive layer of the film. The story is well done; though one should not watch it as a "version" of Hamlet, but rather as "inspired by" Hamlet. Both Ye Yan and Hamlet address political, cultural and social issues through the story, but their issues are not identical. At this point, I would say this is my second favorite Feng Xiaogang film--only behind Tian Xia Wu Zei--but oh how I wish they would all be released in America. I read in the trivia of this web page that Ye Yan will be nominated for the Oscars and I hope this is true......mostly on the off chance that if it wins--despite the American public not seeing it--that it will lead to some of Feng Xiaogang's movies getting an American release.

this film is beautiful to look at. Scenery is great, the way the scenes are set up, the colours and the lighting are fantastic. Even the actors are beautiful to look at - Zhang Zhi Yi is at her sensual best.

The story did have some interesting twists but not too many which is why some on here are complaining it's not 'complex' or 'layered' enough. But compared to a regular Hollywood film and this one is much better.

The acting is uneven. Daniel Wu had a tough time adding any depth to his morose character. I guess he's the Chinese version of Hayden Christenson. Zhang Zhi Yi really shines as does Zhou Xun. Ge You also plays the usurping emperor with passion and adds a bit of humanity to him - he's not just an evil bad guy to be hated.

8/10