“Let me be a concubine. Isn’t that the fate of a woman?”

The Scoop: 1991, directed by Yimou Zhang and starring Li Gong, Saifei He and Cuifen Cao.

Tagline: China, 1920. One master, four wives.

Summary Capsule: Dude, it’s a guy who has FOUR WIVES.  What part of “this is going to be off the HOOK” don’t you understand?

Sue’s rating: Why do I feel smarter when I watch movies with subtitles?

Sue’s review: I watched Raise the Red Lantern a few months ago. I have to admit, I was tempted to write a semi-scathing review immediately, then decided to let it settle in the gray matter for further consideration. After a more thorough contemplation, I gotta tell ya, I still wouldn’t watch it again unless bribed or blackmailed.

Raise the Red Lantern is the story of Songlian, a young woman living in China. When her father dies, Songlian is essentially forced to quit school and become the latest member of a rich older man’s…well, harem, for lack of a better word. As the new wife, or mistress, or whatever, she initially receives a lot of… uhm… attention from the master of the household (which she hates) but also receives preferential treatment, like a wizened old servant woman whose main responsibility in the household seems to be doling out foot massages. Songlian pretends to hate that too, but let’s face it, who doesn’t enjoy a good foot massage?

As we learn more about this rather full household, we can see that the master/hubby has set things up beautifully with his four lady loves. Only one wife can earn his favor on a given day, and only she is granted the preferential treatment. There’s a little daily ceremony that takes place to indicate his choice, in which a red lantern is lit in front of her living quarters. (They all seem to get their own private apartments, which is probably a good thing. The Wife Of The Day gets the massages, picks the daily menu for everyone, and participates in, uhm, marital relations with her/their husband… which incidentally also gives her the opportunity to plant little ideas in his head during pillow talk about how unworthy, childish and mean the other wives are. Meow.

The wives who don’t win Hubby’s favor are essentially ignored and end up spending their days embroidering hankerchiefs or abusing the servants or whatever. The line up is as follows in order of matrimonial dates:

• First Wife: Yuru. Slightly disgusted with the state of (ahem) affairs and keeps herself aloof.
• Second Wife: Zhuoyan. Seems friendly and sweet, but really likes those foot massages.
• Third Wife: Meishan. A former opera singer who warbles at fortissimo at the crack of dawn and makes no bones about wanting to be queen for more than a day.
• Fourth Wife: Songlian. Whines and moans so much, you’d expect her to hit it big on the Country music charts. She doesn’t like the food, doesn’t like her situation, doesn’t like the servants, doesn’t even like her very own personal servant and oh yeah, she’s boooooored.

Oh, and in the black horse role, there’s admittedly Songlian’s personal servant girl, Yan’er, who has delusions of grandeur and a lantern hording disorder.

Now how this all spins out is not something that I’m going to share. You want to know, you watch the movie. I’ll even tell you why you should.

Raise the Red Lantern won like a bazillion awards. It had everything from an Oscar nomination (for best foreign language film) to a win from the prestigious Kansas City Film Critics Circle. Hey, if they liked it in Kansas…! It has tremendously good actors and actresses in it, including Gong Li (Memoirs of a Geisha). The cinematography is nothing short of marvelous and the setting was, to me anyway, really fascinating. What a great view into another culture as it juxtaposed between longstanding tradition and modern societal mores! And stuff.

But, no matter how hard I try and no matter how objective I am, I can’t escape the fact that I just don’t like the movie.

Oh, it’s a cool set up and culturally significant and all that, but–traditionalist that I am–there’s always one fundamental thing that I look for in a movie or book. A hero. Or, a heroine. At the very least, someone I can relate to on some level. Someone I can sympathize with or empathize with or just…you know, GET. I don’t get these people. I don’t think it’s a cultural thing either. They’re just not very nice. None of them.

The closest thing I could find that I related to in any way in Raise the Red Lantern was a very nice chair. But it would look out of place in my living room, so never mind.

I wanted to root for Songlian, because I’m pretty sure I was supposed to. But deep down, she was as cold-hearted and manipulative as any world class… daughter of a terrier… that I can think of. The servant girl (who doesn’t root for the servant girls?!) was just as vindictive. The other wives? Well, let’s just say that they complete the litter. As for the master of the household? If I were to continue with the metaphor, I can think of an operation he really should have had as a pup. Would have *cough* fixed *cough* everything.

Good grief, I didn’t like ANY of these people!

So there you have it. A wonderful, highly regarded, cinematically gorgeous film that I carefully watched, thoughtfully evaluated, and concluded……. meh.

Intermission!

• You never actually see the master’s face.
• Yan’er’s name does not float melodiously off the tongue in the Chinese language.
• You’ve got to have a serious set of pipes to blow out all those lanterns. Or at least one serious pipe.
• Come to think of it, lighting the lamps is a pretty neat process too.
• Chinese opera is not really my cuppa tea, but to each their own.
• There’s a very good reason you have to step really high to get into the ground floor rooms.
• I suspect that a Playstation, Wii or even just cable tv would have prevented a lot of the angst. Heck, an Atari would have helped!
• My guess is that all of these people ended up against the wall when the revolution came.

Groovy Quotes

Third Wife: She has the face of Buddha and the heart of a scorpion.

Songlian: Let me be a concubine. Isn’t that the fate of a woman?

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• Memoirs of a Geisha
• Young Adam
• The Motorcycle Diaries