Reviews

Barbara Wong has apparently decided that the way to revive her career is to become the Chinese Communist Party's Leni Riefenstahl. This film received its premiere at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the PRC, so it's no surprise that everything in the past 10 years is presented in a positive light. The Asian financial crisis? All the fault of George Soros, according to this film. Donald Tsang's "election"? Just another example of the great things that have happened since 1997, according to the director.

With the clear political motive in mind, the storyline is secondary. Basically, Joy (played by Gigi Leung) is moving up in her career, juggling her work and her newborn child. Then, all sorts of challenges come up, none of which come across as plausible. Her assistant (played by Fiona Sit) helps her face the challenges, even though Joy's character seems hardly suited to fight back. Unbelievable coincidences also help Joy revive her situation.

Many Hong Kong films have product placements, but this film has even more than most. Overall, there is no reason to see this movie unless you want to see propaganda.

This film tracks the experiences of three friends, Lucky, Chi-To and Chik, who go to Taiwan with plans to sell counterfeit US currency. Lucky's wife also comes along on the trip. The buyer is arranged by Chi-To's cousin, but not all is what it seems. Chi-To is also interested in Lucky's wife, who used to be his girlfriend.

The storyline gets even more complicated from here- the main plus of the film is the unexpected plot twists. The film is also like many other HK films from the 1980s- very violent, with no sacred cows. The action scenes are not particularly impressive, and neither is the acting, but the unique storyline is a reason to see this film.

Golden Lotus is based, in part, on Jin Ping Mei, a famous erotic novel of ancient China. Li Han-Hsiang adapted part of the story into this film, which starts with Hsi Men Ching, a successful merchant, wooing Pan Chin Lien, the beautiful wife of one of the townspeople. While there is some promise with this part of the story, the film goes steadily downhill from here.

Li provides almost no redeeming qualities to Hsi- Hsi is a inveterate womanizer, stealing and killing in order to get any woman he wants. His extremely sexist attitude may have been the norm in ancient China, the source material does a much better job in making Hsi a symbol of degradation. In this film, Li does introduce some commentary criticizing Hsi's behavior, but it seems a cynical afterthought. Li is also very sloppy with the "romances" that come after Hsi seduces Pan; in almost every case, he rushes through the "romance" to get to soft-focus sex scenes.

Li's obsession with bound feet is very hard to understand- clearly, bound feet were considered attractive for hundreds of years in China, but it was hard for this reviewer (and, I think, most modern audiences) to view grossly disfigured feet in a sexual manner. Yet, again and again, the audience is subjected to Li's fetishistic view of bound feet.

Li also uses voice-over to skip through some of the most important parts of Jin Ping Mei, robbing the film of much structure. Li's direction features many zoom-in closeups at supposedly dramatic parts of the story, and positioning shadowing objects in the foreground of his shots in order to obscure the sex scenes. Li was a talented director, but this film is nowhere near the quality of The Love Eterne; in fact, it is hard to believe that both films were made by the same director.