Zhou Yu's Train
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Movie Reviews of Zhou Yu's Train
Movie Review: Leaves a lasting impression...
Summary: 5 Stars
I was quite surprised by this film to put it simply. The summary I had read about it made it sound like an interesting love story, when in actuality it was an epic journey into the mind. The love story is just a catalyst for the major point which is simply about how we fall in love. It examines the concepts of time, distance, separation, truth, and most importantly reality.
The symbolism of this film reads like a classic chinese novel. Sometimes I felt like this movie played out like the reading of a novel. The timeline of the movie I feel was meant to be confusing. If you truly think about it once you've seen it, it makes perfect sense. Everything in this movie ultimately has and fulfills it's own purpose.
You'll immediately fall in love with the films leading lady Li Gong. She is charismatic to say the least. Her presence on screen is indescribable. I found it very easy to connect immediately to her. I don't think this movie would have worked with someone else. She is personable enough to pull off such a deeply intense character.
I know some people would find this movie a little slow, but if you can appreciate symbolism and can afford to take the time to really think about what the movie is really trying to say, then I fully believe you'll love it as much as I did.
Movie Review: Let's get on the right track...
Summary: 5 Stars
There seems to be much confusion about Gong Li's dual role. Ihope this clears up some of the confusion. My spin is totally different. First of all, there was never a bus wreck. Chinese culture thinks and write in beautiful metaphors, and although her character did take the bus trip, it did not crash. The crash is however, the only way to describe her coming back a different and more mature person. She was no longer "floating", but more confident and sure of what she did not want. Basically, she did not want either of the two men she was hoping to find herself with. The most beautiful scene in the whole film is the end. After years of being tied to the rails, riding trains to meet her lovers, they show a Jeep Cherokee driving along side the train, only to turn away in a dramatic split and liberation from the rails, and her past. She does visit the poet, only to tell him esentially, do not look for Zhou Yu in me. The little girl was gone. She no longer needed the fantasy of him in her life. She found her own way.Movie Review: Romance in Chinese Communism
Summary: 5 Stars
A young and beautiful woman named Zhou Yu paints pottery and takes long train trips that seem to lead nowhere. Her destination is another town where her lover lives. He is a poet who leaves her but she continues the train trips. Another man on the train takes an interest in her. At first she rejects him but later they become closer. The key to this movie is another woman who looks a lot like Zhou Yu and seems to be following her. This lookalike woman is always seen with a book of poetry and she is always alone. It is up to the viewer to decide what is real and what is fantasy.Movie Review: Dawdling ride to an ill-conceived destination
Summary: 4 Stars
The jury is still out on this movie. I purchased it on Amazon.com on the premise that it is Gong Li's triumphant return to the big screen. Somewhat out of character, the movie seemed like a mishmash of several styles and looks that reminded on of faux art house Wong Kar-wai - with the stop/quick shifts in slow motion and (I admit that Wong Kar-wai does not have exclusive rights to this technique) but cut angles on bodies removing any references to faces and emotion. If it was an attempt to rip Wong Kar-wai - then it was a dismal failure. If it tried to stand on its one integrity - I apologize - as that is another story entirely. Undisputedly, among the bevy of actors and actresses to come out of mainland China in recent time, no one single actress (although Zhang Ziyi is painfully trying) has achieved greater top-of-mind awareness than Gong Li. After a long and exhaustive career one would take a much deserved break and we welcome her return - albeit with some reservations. Li plays the lead as the libertine Zhou Yu. Zhou is a contemplative porcelain painter from Sanming. She meets aspiring poet Chen Ching (Tony Leung Kar-fai). She falls dangerously in love with him after the cheesy comparison he makes of her to this place called "Lake Celestial." Predictably, she embarks on an incurable twice-weekly consummations of their passionate affair by her taking a train ride to Chongyang. The story, at least on the surface, smacks of female empowerment. She decides when she wants to see him, she decides when to go, and she also takes an active interest in the writing career of her new boyfriend. Moreover, she raises money to publish his first book and organizes poetry readings on his behalf. Nice arrangement. Not really. When time for him to change jobs - Zhou Yu's obsession with Chen Ching turns into, well, an obsession. Their cozy arrangement gets "derailed" (no pun intended) by two occurrences. [1], Chen begins feeling suffocated by all the attention from Zhou, which [2] makes his uncontrolled relocation to Tibet easier. Here is where the obsession comes in. Even after Chen leaves for Tibet, Zhou continues to make the twice-weekly trips to Chongyang. In one of those obsessed trips to Chongyang - one wonders how a ceramic painter can afford both the time and money to do all this spontaneous travel) she strikes up a friendship/relationship with a fellow commuter, Zhang (Sun Hong-lei). One gets the sense that what is being invoked here is the tenderness of love so evident in a film like "The Road Home." What we see is a pathetic, love struck elegant Gong Li trying to duke it out in art house angst like much younger actresses. Although she still is stunning she cannot pull off the love struck innocent so evocative of "The Road Home."
To be fair, that is not where the story either ends or even begins. Enter Xiu (Gong Li in short hair). Xiu it seems is Zhou from a different time. Xiu navigates through Zhou's stomping grounds - somewhat complicating the story - from the train ride to Chongyang to the cable car station on the way to Chen Ching's home. One would think that some tragedy struck and she was revisiting her past - to form closure. To ensure no spoilers, the viewer has to wait until the film's last fifteen minutes where this character is somewhat explained. Xiu is shown reading a book entitled "Zhou Yu's Train", which calls into question whether Zhou was a real person or not.
To ensure that we give credit where it is due, "Zhou Yu's Train" is impressive. The film's landscapes (which is the real start), which include a juxtaposition of rural and urban settings. Both are exquisitely captured by Wang Yu's pristine camera. Shigeru Umebayashi's melancholy score saves the graceless Li's in slow motion. Li, argue is best seen in her elegant best in movies like "Raise the Red Lantern," "Temptress Moon," and "The Shanghai Triad."
Unless you are a die-hard Gong Li fan, this movie is staid and tepid. The attempts at non-linearity make the movie an exercise in intellect rather than emotionally stirring. Not to say that the two cannot be intertwined - they don't work as a tandem here. I love trains, I love Gong Li, I love a mystery, I love art house. The convergence of all these elements could spell magic. Unfortunately, at first viewing "Zhou Yu's Train" is a dawdling ride to an ill-conceived destination.
Miguel Llora
Movie Review: A beautiful gem
Summary: 4 Stars
The story in Zhou Yu's Train is one about love and freedom. The first topic was taboo in China until only recently (the fact that this film has no female nudity attests to the strict sensorship, both cultural and political, in that country) and the second still forbidden with austere legal enforcement.
The film is a little confusing, especially in the first 30 minutes, due to the use of nonlinearity. It almost seems convoluted, but once you brave on, you'll figure out the story. I'll give a quick rundown of the plot.
Zhou Yu, played by the talented actress Gong Li, is a locally successful porcelain painter. One day, she meets a struggling shy poet called Chen Ching (Tony "The Lover" Leung) and they soon start seeing each other. Zhou is also pursued by a playboy-like veterinarian named Zhang Qiang, whom she meets twice on the train ride to her friend's town: the first time when Zhou and Zhang board the train together and he breaks one of her porcelain bowls, the second time they are introduced to each other by their common friend, the train conductor.
Now the story becomes easy to follow: Zhou wants Chen to commit, but Chen's self-doubt and struggling career propel him to escape from Zhou by going to Tibet. Zhou tries to find a second love in Zhang but simply cannot stop loving Chen. She goes off to look for Chen... well, I can't give the ending away!
The beginning is confusing also because Gong is cast in two roles: that of Zhou (longer, curly hair), and a secondary character called Xiu (short hair), who appears occasionally until the end, when her role becomes clear. In case you still don't get it, here's how it works (SPOILER ALERT!): Xiu is Chen's new girlfriend after Zhou's death in the bus accident. She (Xiu) meets Chen after he has published his collection of poems (this happens at the start of the film). And Xiu is the female narrator of the story. She tells Chen "don't try to find Zhou Yu in me," but obviously, she does want to play the role of Zhou Yu to Chen and make him love her.
There's an innate beautiful quality to the film, thanks to the visually stunning cinematography. (BTW, my friend Ann tells me the hilly city in the film is actually Chongqing, in southwestern China.) Whether it's wideangle landscape, a dreamy indoor scene with soft sunlight coming through bamboo blinds, or sharp-focus close-ups of Gong's beautiful face or her character's beautiful porcelain, each shot in the film is well-composed, well-lit, and well-exposed, almost to perfection. Together with a propelling original music soundtrack, Zhou Yu's Train is a worthy film watching experience. If you are a fan of Gong's, you won't be disappointed; she proves her talent and, almost 40, her sensuality.