49
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75TV Guide MagazineKen FoxTV Guide MagazineKen FoxChinese director Ann Hu follows-up her tepid 2000 debut "Shadow Magic" with another luscious historical drama that, thankfully, is a lot more interesting. The plot is no less melodramatic, but here melodramatics work along with the film's theme, not against it.
- 70SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirHu, a Chinese-American immigrant who made a mid-career switch from business to filmmaking, approaches these characters with genuine passion and compassion, and her evident talent shines through the timeworn material. Acting by all three principals is tremendous.
- The story seems to be occurring in a China of the imagination, an airless place at once sensually ripe and icily formal. Like “Far From Heaven,” it denies its characters and viewers the ecstatic release they crave.
- 50New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanNew York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanIf aesthetics are a prime factor in your movie choices, you may get something out of Ann Hu's overwrought, but beautifully atmospheric, period romance.
- 40VarietyRobert KoehlerVarietyRobert KoehlerAn unappealing, stiff melodrama.
- 38New York PostV.A. MusettoNew York PostV.A. MusettoSo beautifully filmed (as if through a gauze curtain), it is especially sad that the script doesn't measure up.
- 30Village VoiceVillage VoiceThe film plays like the work of a fifth-generation Chinese hack faking a lavish Hollywood saga on an indie budget: It's all soft focuses, sax flourishes, and silky slo-mos.