Fresh
The scenes in the Peking Opera School, where boys are caned for doing wrong or right, are no less horrifying than the later tableaus of public humiliation at the hands of the Maoists.
Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
Farewell My Concubine
The passionate triangle of two lifelong friends and the woman who comes between them!
1993 · 2h 51m · R
Drama
Directed by
Chen Kaige
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Farewell My Concubine
Overview
In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.
Director and cast
- Chen Kaige Director
- Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing as Cheng Dieyi / Xiao Douzi
- Zhang Fengyi as Duan Xiaolou / Xiao Shitou
- Gong Li as Juxian
- Lü Qi as Master Guan
- Ying Da as Manager
- Ge You as Master Yuan Shiqing
- Lei Han as Xiao Si
- Tong Di as Zhang the Eunuch
- Yin Zhi as Teenage Douzi
- Ma Mingwei as Young Douzi
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
90%
Tomatometer
Fresh
This is entertaining filmmaking on a grand scale.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Rotten
Seductively lensed but emotionally uninvolving.
Derek Elley, Variety
Fresh
Chen's remarkable movie uses an unusual love triangle to telescope more than 50 years of tumultuous Chinese history.
David Ansen, Newsweek
Fresh
Appropriately operatic, Chen's visually spectacular epic is sumptuous in every respect. Intelligent, enthralling, rhapsodic.
Geoff Andrew, Time Out
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