Jiang Yuan Long · Xuan an

M'lady Zhang Ziyi has returned (starring Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Grandmaster, Memoirs of a Geisha...)! She's Got No Name is worth the wait and re-editing - hats off to director Ho-Sun Chen for the riveting yet well-balanced display of undisguised gore, historical reenactment, tragic moralizing, and superb cinematic technicality. Zhang absolutely nails the desperate, psychotic, but at glimpses feral and unyielding character of Zhan Zhou; her talent is ageless. I was never a fan of Yang Mi until she shares a scene with Zhang as Wang Xumei, a witty, compassionate, and truehearted foil character whose ending drew tears.

I believe there's a delicate line between telling the story and siding with it. For films like Chicago or She's Got No Name where interior metalepsis is used and the very act of storytelling is criticized, it's even more difficult for the actual narrator, the filmmakers, to deliver their message. For this movie, for whatever reasons of commercialization or re-editing, I feel like that delicate line is blurred and the story's moral becomes disorienting. Are we to uphold Zhan Zhou's rights as to ignore that she dismembered her husband? Is the film's purpose to recreate history, moralize, or cause another spectacle of the rather simple case?

Either way, I would very much like to see the conclusion of She's Got No Name in Part 2.