The film is an English language movie directed by Wayne Wang, a Chinese-American filmmaker, and is an adaptation of a novel by Lisa See, ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.’ It tells the story of two women living in nineteenth century China. Wang is better known as the director of the 2002 Jennifer Lopez movie “Maid In Manhattan”. “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” was supposed to be the second movie to be produced by Zhang Ziyi, who had earlier co-produced the 2009 romantic/comedy “Sophie’s Revenge.”

Zhang’s quitting, however, stirred up suggestions that it may be the result of a conflict between Zhang and a Beijing newspaper recently. The newspaper published an article about a “third woman destroying another’s family.” The actress sued the publication and no further details of the case were available after the case was accepted was accepted. However, Zhang’s publicist, Ji denied the suggestion saying, “She’s been very busy with Wong Kar-Wai’s film… Although Ziyi won’t work with director Wayne Wang this time, they will have another project together in the near future.”

Sources: english.cri.cn, farestfilms.com and wikipedia.org

Set in the 19th-century Southern Hunan province in China, the film revolves around the heartwarming story of female relationship between lifelong friends Lily (Jeon Ji-hoon) and Snow Flower (Zhang Ziyi).

In a time and place when Chinese girls had their feet bound and spent their lives in isolation, the Snow Flower and the Secret Fan offers another dimension unknown to many: a language kept a secret by a group of women for thousands of years.

Lily and Snow Flower will bring to the screen their secret code, nu shu (women’s writing), the only gender-based written language to have been discovered in the world. Amid rigid social conventions, secret letters were painted on fans and dreams and hopes were woven in handkerchiefs.  But beyond language, these two would have friendship and love to sustain them throughout their lives.

The film is a co-production of Zhang Ziyi and Wendi Murdoch. It’s Ziyi’s second film as a producer after making her production debut with “Sophie’s Revenge,” an urban romantic comedy in which she played the lead character.

Sohu.com reports that anyone from Taiwan’s most popular boy band, F4, will make it into screen.  As of this post, no official announcement has been made yet about the male lead.

The film will begin shooting mid-January in Shanghai under the direction of renowned Chinese American film director Wayne Wang who also directed “Maid in Manhattan.”

Zhang Ziyi and Takeshi Kaneshiro last worked together in the blockbuster movie “House of Flying Daggers”.  Now, they’ll be collaborating on another film which is also centered on a love story but this time with no kung fu scenes.  This film is based on Ha Jin’s award winning novel of the same title translated as “Deng Dai” in Chinese.

It is a love story between two people who have waited for 18 years to be together.  Takeshi will play as a doctor in China’s Revolutionary Army who is trapped in an arranged marriage with a country woman because of his dying mother’s will.  Not wanting his arranged life, he mostly lived in the Army’s hospital and only sees his wife and family once a year. There, he falls in love with a nurse played by Zhang Ziyi.

The film’s setting was in the 1950’s to 1960’s when they are both bounded by the Communist Law that compels a man to be separated from his wife for 18 years before he can divorce her.

Such a long time of waiting, I doubt if someone can endure that law in this time. But I think that would make the movie compelling aside from the on-screen chemistry of the two leads. Incidentally, Zhang replaced Takeshi as this year’s ambassador for Emporio Armani.

Chow Yun Fat and Maggie Cheung were initially cast to play the roles of Zhang and Takeshi but the producers China Film Group Corporation wanted a younger generation of stars.  Hongkong Director Peter Chan is the one working on the film which is currently in production stage and will be shown next year, no definite date yet.

Takeshi seems to be Chan’s favorite as he already worked with him in the romantic musical film “Perhaps Love” and recently in the epic war film “Warlords”.

This film reminded me of the Hollywood film “A Very Long Engagement” starring Audrey Tautou in a fictional romantic film about a woman who had long searched for her missing love who might have been killed in the war.

That loyalty kind of thing is rare nowadays and a movie that speaks about it would be great especially in these times when fidelity is always an issue.

I had heard a lot of talk on the grape-vine regarding The Banquet around the time of its initial release in Hong Kong that it was a very stylish film that despite all its glitz and glamour, lacked the substance underneath to merit it being a essential piece of cinema. This was somewhat disappointing to hear as it decreased my desire to see the film, and Zhang Ziyi was in it, and anything with her should be essential viewing. Well, I finally got hold of the Metrodome UK release many years after all this talk and rumour spreading and I’ve been able to make up my own mind.

First off, the talk was most certainly right in the stylish regards. Every set, every scene, every camera shot or pan looks quite simply superb. This is by far the most impressive aspect of the film. In fact, if anything the film goes too far and becomes too stylish and borders the realms of pompous artistry. Nowhere did I feel this more so than the attack on the Music and Dance school in the first third of the film. Maybe it was how the characters were meant to be, after all they all were supposedly scholars of music and dance, but if I were being attacked by people intent on killing me, I wouldn’t prance around, making deep artistic poses and not defend myself in anyway. With so much arty-ness going on, and it being at the forefront of the film, I feared the film would lose deeper substance and become not much more than a glamour piece that is only skin deep – in other words I feared the rumours and talk was going to be on the money.

Unfortunately, it was. The story was nothing more than a standard tale of murder and revenge, so required something special from the cast to elevate it above the other films in this genre, but rather than powerful, emotional performances, what you mostly got was arty melodrama. Daniel Wu is fairly wooden, with very little emotional range, Ge You is successful as the slimy, smarmy brother who you grow to dislike rather quickly, Zhang Ziyi doesn’t have enough to do other than look conniving and being caught in the midst of all the drama, and the rest of the cast offer nothing much other than standard performances. There is little to make you feel for the characters involved or their situations. The only remaining saving grace for The Banquet is the action.

Alas, it was not up to a great standard either. With Yeun Wo-Ping at the helm, expectations were unsurprisingly high. The action delivers entertainment, but not anything that proved memorable. I wasn’t left grinning like a Cheshire cat while watching fights like I so often have been. I was simply left mildly entertained, but with a hope for better later. Whether this was a constriction from the main director or the people he was choreographing, I don’t know, but it simply wasn’t up to the standards you’d like to see from Yuen Wo Ping.

With so much of an arty feel, The Banquet always had the potential to alienate some viewers and I think I was one of those people. It did not hit home on any level other than visuals, but those went too far. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. With no empathy or sympathy generated for the characters, I got not engage myself with the proceedings on any level and was left with nothing more than an impression that was only skin deep, which is such a shame as there was a lot of potential in the cast and crew.

Rating:

[Rating 1.5/5]

Reposted from Dark Dragon Style

The release of the film is one of the main events in the celebration which aims to inculcate patriotism to the young generation. The film reminisces the crucial times in Chinese history when the most enduring communist revolution began from 1945 when they fight against Japanese aggression up to 1949 when they won against the Kuomintang group, ended the Chinese Civil War and formed the People’s Republic of China.

Although this movie has the biggest gathering of highest-paid stars, the producer revealed that the production cost is comparatively lower than many of today’s commercial projects.  It might be because most of the cast members and celebrities who made guest appearances did the film without asking any pay.

Jet Li plays a  Kuomintang naval admiral while Jackie Chan cameos as a reporter.  During the movie premier (Sept. 10),  Jackie admitted that he liked the role of Chairman Mao but the director chose Tang Guoqiang as he has just the right age to play as the Chairman.  Another chairman behind this historical film is Mr. Han Sanping, of China Film Group, one of the biggest Chinese film distributors.

Watching this movie is a good reason to find out why the face of Chairman Mao is still in the country’s bank notes over so many years now despite many other things that happened in Chinese history.  The movie will be shown across China this Sept. 17^th and in Hongkong, on or before Sept. 20