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Raise the Red Lantern

"Light the lanterns at the fourth house!"

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) is a Mandarin-language period drama from China and Hong Kong, directed by Zhang Yimou and written by Ni Zhen, adapted from Su Tong’s novella Wives and Concubines. The film stars Gong Li as Songlian, a young woman who becomes the fourth wife of a wealthy household—Ma Jingwu as the faceless Master, He Saifei as the third mistress Meishan, Cao Cuifen as the treacherous second mistress Zhuoyun, and Kong Lin as Yan’er, Songlian’s resentful maid. Shot at the Qiao Family Compound near Pingyao, it was banned in China on release despite its script having been approved. Andy Nelson and Pete Wright discuss the film on The Next Reel, a TruStory FM podcast covering cinema since 2011, as part of their Zhang Yimou series.

The House That Swallows You

Where Ju Dou confined its characters inside a dye mill, Raise the Red Lantern traps them inside an ancient courtyard compound whose very architecture makes the argument. Pete describes the house with real feeling: the maze of unconnected buildings surrounded by a single great wall, originally conceived as a place of protection and purity for the women within. What Zhang Yimou finds inside those walls is the opposite—a colorless, soulless, falling-apart system where the only brightness is the red lanterns that signal which wife the master will visit that night. The compound doesn’t just frame the story. It is the story.

Songlian arrives with her education, her sense of self, and a flute—a memento from her dead father. The house systematically strips all of it away. Pete observes that she is addressed by her number almost more than her name: not Songlian but Fourth Mistress, Fourth Sister, Fourth Aunt. The servants who work below her at least have names. She is something less—a rank in a system she chose to enter, she reminds herself, and can’t now leave.

A Split That Stays Interesting

Pete and Andy come out of this one on genuinely opposite sides, and the disagreement never quite resolves—which makes it one of the more revealing conversations in the series. Andy calls it his favorite Zhang Yimou film and bought the soundtrack immediately after watching. Pete found it gorgeous, slow, and ultimately something he never needs to watch again. What’s striking is that Pete doesn’t dismiss it: he articulates real appreciation for the artistry, the house, the formal rigor, the ending. He just didn’t connect. And Andy, for his part, doesn’t try too hard to bring him over. They agree on what the film is doing. They disagree on whether that’s enough.

The pacing argument runs throughout. Andy reads the film’s deliberate stillness—long static takes, Kubrickian centering, almost no camera movement—as a formal mirror of the house’s rigid rules. Every shot is composed the way the house demands behavior: symmetrically, precisely, with everyone in their assigned place. Pete felt it as repetition without accumulation. The foot massage ritual, the lantern ceremony, the meal selection—Andy finds all of it essential world-building. Pete finds it numbing. Both readings hold.

The Exoticism Debate, Continued

The conversation that started in the Ju Dou episode—about scholar Ma Shang Mei’s critique that Zhang caters to Western appetite for exotic Orient spectacle—comes back here, and Pete makes his strongest case against it. The foot massage ritual, which might look like the clearest example of hyper-orientalization, is actually structurally load-bearing: it’s the ritual that governs access to the master, that determines the power hierarchy among wives, that everything else in the film turns on. Take it out and you lose the engine of the story. Pete argues this is exactly why the critique collapses here—the detail isn’t decorative, it’s causal. Andy had been stewing on this all week and comes in fired up in agreement.

What the Walls Are Saying

Zhang’s denial of any political allegory gets a thorough workout. Andy and Pete both find it impossible to take at face value, and note that it didn’t work anyway—the film was banned in China even with script approval. The readings stack up: critic James Berardinelli’s formulation (Songlian as the individual, the master as the government, the customs of the house as the laws of the country) gets the most airtime, but Pete layers on his own: the house as the fallen Chinese cultural value system, the lanterns as the false promise of ideological reward, the increasingly ghostly women as the cost of a society that has no use for people who won’t play within the rules. Andy finds it hard to argue that Zhang wasn’t putting symbolism in the street, as he puts it. Zhang would probably still deny it.

Every Woman Ends Up a Ghost

The conversation Songlian has with Meishan midway through the film—people are ghosts, ghosts are people—gets identified as the key foreshadowing note, and Andy traces how the film delivers on it for every woman by the end. Meishan is killed. Yan’er dies refusing to apologize. Zhuoyun becomes the new dominant force but hollowed into pure calculation. The first wife Yuru was already a shell when we met her. And Songlian wanders the courtyard in her original university uniform, a ghost of the person who arrived. Pete finds this the most compelling thing about the film: it doesn’t leave a single woman intact. They all end up haunting the place that was supposed to protect them.

Key Discussion Points

  • The faceless Master is a formal choice that does real work: by refusing to individualize the patriarch, Zhang opens the film to readings ranging from feudal critique to Maoist allegory—and makes clear the story is about the women, not him.
  • Songlian begins the film passing the bridal sedan on her walk to the compound without looking back—a small character note Andy reads as confidence, which the house will spend the next two hours dismantling.
  • Meishan starts as the character we dislike and ends as Songlian’s closest ally—a reversal Andy finds one of the most satisfying things about the screenplay, and one that makes her death hit harder.
  • The subplot involving Feipu, the master’s grown son, teases a relationship with Songlian that never materializes. Pete wanted it cut entirely. Andy suspects it may have been softened during script approval to avoid the ban that came anyway.
  • Cinematographer Zhao Fei delivers one eruption of handheld chaos—Songlian running toward the death house on the roof—deliberately jarring against the film’s prevailing stillness. It’s the moment Pete says he most wanted the rest of the film to be.
  • Andy loved Zhao Jiping’s score and bought it immediately after watching. Pete found the percussion relentless—”closing my head in a car door, repeatedly.”

Before You Watch

Where does this fit in the Zhang Yimou series?

It’s the second episode—right after Ju Dou, which Pete and Andy covered the week before. Both films share a 1920s setting, a story of women trapped inside oppressive systems, and Gong Li at the center. If you’re new to the series, either episode works as an entry point, but starting with Ju Dou gives you the context for some of the running threads—especially the exoticism debate that carries through here.

What did Pete and Andy make of it?

They split hard. Andy calls it his favorite Zhang Yimou film and was moved enough to buy the soundtrack immediately after. Pete appreciated the artistry but found it so slow he describes it as feeling like a 19-hour film and says he’d never watch it again. They agree it’s essential—they just disagree on the experience of sitting with it.

How does it compare to Ju Dou?

Ju Dou is more propulsive—the forbidden affair, the structural midpoint reveal, the Technicolor explosiveness all keep things moving. Raise the Red Lantern is more patient and more formal: the camera barely moves, the rituals repeat, and the weight accumulates slowly. Andy thinks that patience is the point. Pete thinks it goes on too long. Both films are visually stunning and share the same thematic DNA.

Is there a good version to watch?

Same story as Ju Dou—the DVD transfers have been poor, and Pete and Andy spend time on this again here. The Via Vision Blu-ray set collecting Zhang and Gong Li’s collaborations is the best home video option, though it was out of stock at the time of recording. Worth checking back on.

Join us—Pete Wright and Andy Nelson—as we continue our Zhang Yimou series on The Next Reel. Next up: Hero.

Episode Resources

🎬 Watch & Discover

📚 Film Sundries

🎧 What to Listen to Next

  • Continue the Zhang Yimou series — from Ju Dou and Hero through To Live, House of Flying Daggers, and Shadow, this series traces one of cinema’s most visually distinctive filmmakers across three decades
  • Ju Dou — the episode right before this one—the exoticism debate that runs through this conversation starts there, and the two films are best understood together
  • Hero — the very next episode—Zhang Yimou’s leap into wuxia action cinema, and Pete’s enthusiasm levels reverse dramatically
  • Yi Yi (A One and a Two) — Edward Yang’s Taiwanese masterwork is a natural companion: another devastating film from the same era of East Asian cinema, working in an entirely different register
  • In the Mood for Love — Wong Kar-wai’s study of longing and restraint covers some of the same emotional territory, with a very different visual vocabulary—a listener’s choice episode
  • Hannibal Rising — not the finest showcase for Gong Li’s talents (Pete and Andy would be the first to say so), but part of the reason Andy wanted to return to the Zhang Yimou series and revisit what she can actually do

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*This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.*

Pete Wright
This is The Next Reel, everybody. I’m Pete Wright, and that there is Andy Nelson.

Andy Nelson
Hey, hey, hey!

Pete Wright
And we spoil movies. Tonight on the show we’re continuing our Zhang Yimou series with his 1991 film Raise the Red Lantern. Before we get into that, you should learn more about us at thenextreel.com. Subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast app, or join us on YouTube, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook at thenextreel. And if you’ve ever wished for the spinach and bean curd. Then it sounds like your diet is just right for the next reels Instagram hashtag guest the movie challenge.

Andy Nelson
And with that, since Gamesmaster Steven Smart is busy eating his dinner of chrysanthemum moss hair, thrice-fried mushrooms And Heart of Cactus, I’ll fill you in on who won this week. The movie was Trance, directed by Danny Boyle from 2013, starring James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson, and Vincent Cassell Congrats to AdFegvi who figured it out. And we’ve got a blot spot. Friend of the show, Ben Lott is written in with his rebound on Ju Dou. Ju Dou is visually beautiful once you get past the bad DVD transfer. The story is like a Shakespearean play and has a lot of good ro dramatic moments. I thought it was interesting how my opinion of the protagonists shifted as the movie progressed. It was a little slow to get started and might have been a bit too melodramatic, but I like Zhang Yimou ‘s style. Your rank 80? My rank 101. Well that’s pretty close. I think that’s a great start for the series. You know, I this is what I wasn’t quite sure uh what Ben Lott would think, but it’s uh great to hear that uh that he enjoyed it

Pete Wright
I love that he captured that word, melodrama. It’s the one word I needed last week, but couldn’t put my mouth on it. Melodrama. That climbing down the stairs headfirst. That’s melodrama.

Andy Nelson
Well that’s also after you’ve been you know sleeping in a pit of poison.

Pete Wright
You know Potato potato. Andy, it’s time. Let’s do trailers. Aftermath. So I looked at the trailer or the poster, I think, first of aftermath, and the poster is uh Arnold Schwarzenegger and doesn’t it look like like the sequel to Maggie?

Andy Nelson
Uh I have to look at it.

Pete Wright
It just has that look to it. Remember? You remember the Maggie uh Maggie thing? It was very grim and sort of m uh seepia and it was weathered Schwarzenegger.

Andy Nelson
I’m looking at the wrong trailer. I’m looking at the Did you not even watch my trailer? Totally wrong, pu No, I did, but I was looking at the poster over on IMDb, but I was like, this doesn’t look right. It’s the poster says serpent gods, megastorms. Doomsday Meteors, Mass Vanishings. I was like, what is this? And then I saw that it was the sci-fi TV series. So wrong aftermath.

Pete Wright
Nope. Anyhow.

Andy Nelson
No, you know, you know, okay. Now now I’m looking at the right poster, and it actually reminds me of Paul Greengrass’s uh what was that movie that he did with Matt Damon? Yeah. Uh green zone. It looks like you know one of those uh you know CCTV you know photos uh from the

Pete Wright
Okay, I can see that too. I can totally see that too. I think we’re looking at different posters. I’m on the one on Wikipedia right now. And it the only thing different, if you took the planes out of the picture, it we would it looked very much like Maggie. Anyway, it’s a story, it’s actually a true story. Uh it is a story of the Überlingen uh mid-air collision uh and the subsequent murder of Swiss air traffic controller Peter Nielsen by Russian architect. Vitali Kaloyev, who held Nisan responsible for the deaths of his wife and two children in the disaster, says Wikipedia. So I didn’t know that what the first time I watched the trailer and I thought this is crazy. Who does this? It turns out it’s a true story and it really is a thing that happened. This is the these this is a mid-air collision on landing of these two planes and this guy Uh Schwarzenegger plays this guy who goes bananas and says that you know you need to apologize. Apologize for the death of my wife and daughter. And uh it is uh an incredibly sad story, and uh it I think it’s just really grim. Uh it is written by Javier Goulon. who’s uh he’s a Spanish screenwriter and we have actually talked about him as trailer picks. I think we may have done two of them. Uh Out of the Dark. uh was the first one an enemy, the uh Jake Gyllenhaal uh film. I think we’ve done both of those as trailer picks, and I haven’t seen either one. Uh man, we’ve got a long list of trailer packs to get through. I need a better system of seeing these things. Uh a anyhow uh so I think the trailer actually looks really good. I haven’t quite come to terms with Schwarzenegger as his post governor actor. Um I I enjoyed Maggie. I thought I think it had some problems, and none of those problems were uh in my head risk related to Schwarzenegger. Um and yet I still am not convinced that um uh of who he is as an actor now. Um but based on that I’m absolutely willing to give this one. uh shot. How did it hit you?

Andy Nelson
Well it’s so interesting. It’s like his um his post governor career other than like the cameos in the expendables and stuff like that, it really seems like he’s trying to kind of make a shift in his career where it’s definitely kind of the l less of the action stuff and a little more character stuff, which I think is interesting for him to do. Um so I’m I’m kind of curious to see. Um I haven’t seen any of the stuff that he’s done really. Um and so I I don’t know. I need to check some of them out and kind of get a read on how his uh how his acting career is holding up now that he’s kind of jumping back into the fray. But it looks intriguing. I’m definitely intrigued by the story. I didn’t uh realize that the true story uh took place over in Europe, so uh it’s uh it’s interesting that they’ve gone the Arnold Schwarzenegger route. Um so yeah, it looks interesting. And, you know, just to just in case people get confused, this is not the aftermath, another twenty seventeen film. that happens to be coming out uh with Kira Knightley, Alexander Skarskard, and Jason Clark.

Pete Wright
Nope, this is not that film.

Andy Nelson
Clearly there are a lot of aftermaths out there.

Pete Wright
Uh this one is due to hit the UK and uh the United States April 7th of 2017 and Spain April 21st. Those are the only release dates on IMDb right now.

Andy Nelson
What’s yours? Well, I um am looking at the uh the teaser trailer that just came out for Sophia Coppola’s new film, The Beguiled. Which um yeah, you know, she’s a filmmaker who uh who I find a really compelling storyteller. I don’t always like her films, but I do think that she’s bringing some interesting stuff to the table and I mean we’ve talked about her acting career, and I think that um I I think that uh what she does behind the camera I find much more um appealing and interesting. This film, um, I have seen the Don Siegel um version of this story. It’s based on a novel by Thomas Cullen and Um and it’s a it’s about a Confederate soldier who gets imprisoned in this kind of Confederate girls uh boarding school. I mean he’s a Union soldier, sorry. And um he kind of cons his way into um these girls’ hearts and they start falling for him and he gets them to turn on each other and eventually they turn on him and it’s it’s a really interesting story. And Don Siegel directed it with uh Clint Eastwood and I think it was Geraldine Page back in 71. And that version was really kind of um uh disturbing and it was just really interesting uh story that just kind of uh really unsettled me. And um what I think is gonna be so interesting about this, at least I hope, is that now we’re getting it from a woman’s perspective. We have a strong female storyteller, Sophia Coppola, who’s who’s uh written her own adaptation of this book. and telling it kind of from uh a perspective that we m probably didn’t get from the Don Siegel version. And uh that excites me. I think it’s gonna be really exciting seeing how she takes this story and uh gives it her own spin. Uh it’s got Nicole Kidman, L. Fanning, Andrew Rie Rice, Kirsten Dunst, uh, and then of course Colin Farrell as the soldier here. So uh yeah, what’d you think of this trailer?

Pete Wright
I thought the trailer was great. I uh m i uh it starts out and it uh I think to myself, I’m not gonna like this movie. This looks like a Sofia Coppola movie. And I’m not a huge fan, and so I’m not gonna like it. And then it turns all thrillery and then it gets scary. These girls are crazy. And I like it. Colin Farrell uh playing the uh the victim role at the hands of these adorable girls. uh I think is uh really compelling uh thriller stuff. So I’m I thought the trailer was really compelling. It was cut nice and tight and it built intensity very well and very quickly and I thought it worked very well for me. I’m I’m definitely in.

Andy Nelson
Well I’m curious to see uh how it plays. It’s gonna be a summer film It’s hitting right at the end of June, uh limited release June twenty third, and then um uh it’s opening wide June thirtieth. So it’s really kind of pushing as I guess uh an alternate option for the uh you know pre-Fourth of July weekend with Spider Man and everything. So I’m curious to see how it ends up uh doing at the box office. And then it goes, uh let’s see, France, August 23rd, Sweden, September 1st, and Italy, September 14th. So it’s gonna have a kind of a slow rollout, but uh I’m curious to see how this one does

Pete Wright
Me too. Don’t underestimate the foot massage, Andy. If you get one every day, you will be ruling the household. Raise the Red Lantern, Andy. Raise it.

Andy Nelson
It’s up.

Pete Wright
I raised it already. Up raise it high. You are the lucky winner, Andy. The red lantern’s going in on your house. This is uh Zhang Yimou ‘s nineteen ninety-one story of many wives and one faceless husband The adaptation was done by Ni Zhen. It was a uh late 80s, early 90s novel uh that uh was adapted by Ni Zhen. Stars Gong Li again uh a young woman married to an old man again and uh and the story of her uh adaptation uh to this household and the other wives who live there. Uh what did you think of it this time around?

Andy Nelson
And are we c are we calling her a Lee Gong or are we gonna call her Gong Li?

Pete Wright
Gong Li, we’re gonna call her Gong. You know what the problem is? I just read the words.

Andy Nelson
The problem is this crazy uh language thing with the Chinese putting the uh the surname first and so you get Gong Li and then when you put it into like IMDb They reverse everything, so it comes out as Gong Li.

Pete Wright
Let me be very clear, Andy. There are more there than that of them than there are of us. Therefore we

Andy Nelson
I know. And the frustrating thing is when there are ones that are done correctly. that you know, okay, well I know it should be Gong Li, at least the way that we say it. But then there are some where I’m just like, okay, but I’m seeing like the author, uh, you know, uh n is like Su Tong of the of the book is written as Su Tong , but not as Tong Su. So I’m like, wait a minute, so they didn’t reverse that one, so is that one right or like Then I start doubting.

Pete Wright
They totally mess you up. Yeah. Ah, so really this is IMDb’s fault, and that’s the that’s the problem. It is. Let’s just blame them. All right. Can we can we talk about this movie? What’d you think?

Andy Nelson
Let’s talk about this movie. All right. I love this movie. This is my uh probably my favorite Zhang Yimou film. I hadn’t seen it in probably as long as uh it had been since I had seen Ju Dou, but um this one has just always stuck with me and upon re-watching it just uh just instantly fell in love with it. Really fascinating story. I love the characters. I love the complexity uh and the machinations going on within this uh this house. And uh and the tragedy of the whole thing. It’s just a really uh a really powerful story and just a beautiful film to watch. What do you think?

Pete Wright
I totally agree. It is beautiful. It is a tragedy of some really I mean a tragic story of this character and it’s a tragic critique. of this sort of Chinese culture, this rigorous Chinese culture. And it is it is so beautiful. I can’t I can’t underscore that enough. It is beautiful and it absolutely demonstrates Zhang Yimou ‘s uh a affinity with the camera and using the camera as uh another way to critique uh b to provide a cultural critique or a character critique, it’s just beautiful. And I was so bored I was so bored through this movie, Andy. It felt like a 19-hour film. I could not get to the other end of it. I feel like it was just an exercise in Um in I it pains me to say that, but I this is not a movie I’m ever gonna watch again because it was so boring. Ouch. It was so beautiful. It is so beautiful and I it’s again I will watch I I would watch a few minutes of it to see how great he captures the house and the light and there is to me there is no story here. I don’t it takes too long to tell me anything. And each of the elements going through each of the character exchanges between each of the other wives and the servants, I find so repetitive and boring. I know that I this is me reflecting on my need for like a Hollywood ending. But I liked Ju Dou, you know. I thought that was definitely not a Hollywood ending. Well, I’d say that I uh

Andy Nelson
I would say the vast majority of critics probably agree with me, except for Hal Henson of the Washington Post, who agrees with you, who said the story never amounts to much more than a rather tepid Chinese rendition of the women. No, I wouldn’t go that far.

Pete Wright
I no, and you know I do, I think there is so much to appreciate about this film, and you will absolutely get me every time uh appreciating the way this film is structured. I just think it did I didn’t connect with it and I had seen this one before. It has been a very long time. I came at it remembering very little. I remember flashes and the stuff I remember is the stuff that is most intense. At the end I thought the movie was made up much more of s of the sort of style and pace of the final sequence and Yeah, it turns out it’s not, and it is a much more patient film, and for some people that patience is good, and for me it was super long. Also, terrible transfer.

Andy Nelson
Yes, man. What is up with these uh Zhang Yimou films? They just uh they really need some love.

Pete Wright
Yeah, they really do. So Uh we’ll say maybe, maybe it would be better if it were uh a better transfer. How about that? So I’ll hold out hope I guess.

Andy Nelson
Okay, there you go. Well, uh you know, I this is a uh a film that I mean you’re right. Zhang Yimou uh has this really interesting way to construct films and the way that he puts this film together Um I mean it is very uh slow paced, the shots are long and steady and still and very v structured. I uh found the way that he organize the film, it is very much like the rigidity of the rules within the world. You know, you had just very um still shots, very formal. Everything is just, you know, it’s very Kubricky in the way that things are very centered and you have you know characters right in the middle of the screen with a everything exactly composed uh perfectly around them And that uh I think that lent a lot to the uh possibly that aspect of the storytelling that frustrated you. is that it’s just, you know, it is a very deliberately paced film as you’re kind of moving through it in this world of these uh these four concubines, these four wives of this master. And the machinations they go through as they each try to get the red lanterns at their house for the night. And the red lanterns if they get the red lanterns at the house, it means that he’s gonna spend the night there with that particular wife. Um and it’s just it’s very uh interesting watching these poor women who uh you know I think what is so interesting for me is this transformation of Gong Li right at the beginning of the film. you get this uh amazing kind of uh single shot of her as she’s kind of talking through uh the frustration of agreeing to marry this uh rich person and her mom’s like, You’re gonna be a concubine and she’s like, Why does it matter? What else is there for women? And it’s just like this uh resignation she has that she has to kind of suffer this lot in life and that once there, that’s the only world we get, and we get this sense of these women. And it’s the only power plays they can do now is against each other to get his favor.

Pete Wright
And I wanna I wanna throw in a note on that point, Andy, because I think it’s actually fascinating that uh i the only example of uh kind of the progressive uh a more progressive fem feminist identity in the film comes from the mother that we never see when she’s actually trying to help the daughter make the case not to do what she’s about to do. And as soon as we get into this house, all we get is the uh is a regression uh to this sort of um the order of matrons and oppression uh in this house. And it it gets it only gets darker from there.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, it’s it’s interesting because the mother, I mean she’s you know, we as Songlian uh says, you know, the mother has been um bugging her for three days talking to her about getting married. This all happens she’s off in college, but her father dies and now she has to quit college and basically get married or something else because

Pete Wright
Yeah, and apparently in the book he commits suicide.

Andy Nelson
Oh, interesting. Yeah. But yeah, so, you know, i it’s like her mother kind of talks her into getting married. And she’s the one who says, Well, you always speak of money, why shouldn’t I marry a rich man? And so it’s like she’s doing exactly what the mother kind of alluded that she wanted her to do, but then the mother is just like, No, you’re just gonna be a concubine then

Pete Wright
I take it back, I take it back, I take it back.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, right. It’s it’s interesting. I uh the way that plays out, I think, is so interesting. But um uh yeah.

Pete Wright
So i you know, one of the things that I think is really uh fascinating about this, and to your point, when she st sets foot onto the grounds she almost immediately loses her identity, right? She goes from Songlian a w and e and gets this sort of uh moniker of fourth wife, right? Or fourth sister. Fourth mistress. Fourth mistress or fourth aunt or whatever they call you know they end up calling her. But it’s it’s you know f more frequently she is addressed by fourth something than she is addressed by um you know by her name, right? It’s less the it’s almost less than of an identity than it is for the servants who who have names. Um and she you know, doesn’t as much. And I think that’s an that’s an interesting twist that we get. It’s she is it is a reflection that she becomes a servant herself. It’s just a different kind of servant uh in this um in this environment.

Andy Nelson
Yeah. No, and that is very true. Um, you know, you know, it’s such an interesting character right from the beginning. I mean we see this incredible shot of her at the beginning. But then, like, the next thing we see of her is her kind of walking to this house where she’s gonna, you know, get married to this guy. And she passes the um uh the bridal buggy or whatever it is, the bridal sedan, um, and she sees them kind of uh passing them, but she doesn’t bother you know going back to them. She just kind of keeps going. And I think that says a lot about her character, is that she’s you know, she’s kind of s uh set in her ways and she’s uh pretty uh a you know, a powerful character. She has a good sense about her. But it’s interesting to watch how that all changes once she gets to this house and how everything um becomes so different. And she’s she, you know, she is a strong character and we see her um very kind of uh confused with this world. Um, but she’s she’s one of those characters who um because of the um uh she’s unsure and she isn’t really doesn’t really know what to do. She is very good at putting on this kind of air of confidence and so she plays it up really well

Pete Wright
I think so too. Talk a little bit about the about uh the master, will you? Like what is your sense of uh of the strategy behind him? One of the the things that they do, one of the sort of visual tropes is we never really see his face. Uh what do you think that’s all about?

Andy Nelson
Well, I think that it’s uh it’s just an interesting way to um really make the story about these women. I mean he is this all-important other that is the one thing that all these ladies uh focus their whole world on that’s all they care about. Um But it doesn’t matter anything about him. Like w why does anything about him matter? He is just a um a husband that they have to do everything for. And so I think it’s just a really interesting setup s that says so much about this world that It doesn’t matter who this guy is. What matters is the power plays that these women are going to be able to play against each other to curry his favor. Um and I think because of that it’s made it open for a lot of people to really put their own interpretations on this film. I mean Zhang Yimou has kind of d denied a lot of the interpretations But everybody looks at it as, you know, criticism of contemporary China, how, you know, the wives are a metaphor uh for or the um the fragmented civil society of post-cultural revolution China, um another critic, uh James uh Bernadelli said that Songlian is the individual, the master is the government, and the customs of the house are the laws of the country. It’s an archaic system that rewards those who play within the rules and destroys those who violate them. So I think the way that Zhang Yimou tells the story with the master being this kind of faceless man that these women are kind of um doing everything to uh get the attention of. allows people to uh to put their some interesting interpretations on the film, which I think I think is a sign of a good filmmaker um doing some interesting stuff with his story that allows people to dig like that.

Pete Wright
I think so too. I you know the house for me is the thing I really latched on to. First of all, it’s an amazing facility, right? It’s one of these uh fantastic courtyard houses, right? When you look at the Forbidden Palace, you know, Empire of the Sun, right? Those are that is the biggest of the and the most amazing of the courtyard house. But this was the sort of um you know the vested landowner um you know house of ages uh in this period and for you know thousands of years they built these incredible Uh facilities like mazes of buildings that are all not attached to one another, only attached by pathways, right? And uh and surrounded by a giant wall, and that wall is really symbolic, right? Because it’s supposed to when you take these uh when when the owner of the house takes these women into the a as his wife, the promise is and the ideal, the sort of ideology of the walls um is that i it protects the women from all the ills of society, right? It keeps them um it keeps them pure, it keeps them honest, it keeps them out of trouble, it keeps them healthy. uh and all of those things. And then you have this film, which shows a palace that is, apart from the Red Lanterns, it shows a palace that is uh gray, right? It’s colorless, it’s soulless, it is empty, but for the servants that we see and these wives and the landowner that we don’t actually see his face, right? It is falling apart. It is far from the aspirational sort of purity of the women who occupy these roles. In fact, all they aspire to is dark darkness. And again, to your point about you know what we ascribe to this film, the meaning that we ascribe to this film is you know potentially is this a critique of the fall of the Chinese cultural value system, right? The fall of the communist value system when we look at what is supposed to be so pure and such a s uh grounded, uh foundational element of family. that is actually falling apart. And even Chen, the owner, uh i comments on it multiple times on you know the way the women behave with one another. uh in the film, it it’s making a statement in and of itself. I can see why Yimou would not want to make any uh it would not want to sort of accept any of the, you know, parallels that his filmmaking might have to the Chinese system, but it’s kind of hard not to not to make those comparisons.

Andy Nelson
Well, and it didn’t help the film get uh banned, you know. I mean The script had been approved and everything, but it still ended up getting banned for a number of years because uh clearly people were be able to see quite a bit of stuff. in the film. Um so you know, I it’s interesting uh the way that he uh tells his stories. I think that he gets a lot in there. And going back to what we talked about last uh last week with Ju Dou This film is full of rituals and there’s just so much uh interesting stuff going on, all these traditions and rituals and just these things that people follow, the customs. It’s it’s such an interesting world and Uh, you know, I was thinking about um that article that you brought up last week and just thinking about, you know, we are constantly talking about world building on this show, and it’s like these are Uh nothing more than uh than other great tools that than a storyteller is using to kind of build their world. So Again, it just kind of is like, you know, it irks me that article that you brought up because I’m like, there’s it’s why can’t a person put these d interesting details in a story? It’s it was so frustrating. But uh again, and this is full of this amazing world building.

Pete Wright
I this is the uh to your point, exactly. I’m first of all, I’m really glad that you were able to stew on that over the week because it makes me really happy to bring a resource that causes you that causes you some cycles So much consternation. Yes, consternation on this. situation of the feet in this movie. You gotta come to the feet with this movie because so much about um sort of the ritual starts with the feet. It starts starts with how the feet are portrayed in the film. And um you know, the w wife the new wife that comes in. Um w we should talk, I think, briefly about the rules of the of the uh house that uh each night Much like Oprah giving away a car , it is announced which wife the husband will spend the night with And whichever you get a red lantern, and you get a red lantern and you get a red uh whichever hu whichever wife that is, they light the red lanterns and then they begin the ritual of preparing the wife and they start with a foot massage. a highly ritualized foot massage that this there’s little paddles, the like shakers that they beat the bottom of the feet. Yeah, these little hammers uh that they beat the feet, they wash the feet. uh and um and the foot massages uh you know largely in this film replaced the binding of feet which was again a sign of sort of um sexual subservience um you know uh smaller feet meant for a better sexual servant for the husband in many regards. And so um that’s that’s what this is. The ritual leads specifically to a story element that is important for the film. Right? And that’s why the criticism that we talked about last week that the foot massage actually uh i simply celebrates a hyper-orientalization It is a market-driven, uh, sensationalized view of the exotic orient that is merely designed to fill a hungry Western need for this exoticism. That’s why I think this argument falls apart in this film, because if you don’t have that, if you don’t have that cultural uh the the positioning of the feat as a cultural element, as a ritual element, I don’t think you understand uh as well what is going on in their relationship. And as you see all of the women sort of progressively except for first wife, I think go through this in some way, shape or form. You uh you get to see that they’re all servants in that regard, even though they’re taken care of, they’re serving a specific need. I don’t think you get it without it. I think you’re right to be frustrated. Uh

Andy Nelson
yeah, I mean all of it. I mean even down to the food, picking the meal, you know, because that becomes just as important. The wife who uh gets the husband that night gets to pick the meal and that becomes a an issue of contention with Songlian because she really wants her uh what is it, bean curd and spinach or whatever it is. I can’t remember. And uh and uh third wife wants uh meat. You know, she doesn’t want to just have a bunch of vegetables, and so it just is another interesting issue of contention. And I love how even we get a shot of the cooks in the kitchen annoyed by, you know, like these customs. But like everybody else, it’s just like, well, you know, it is what it is. We just gotta go along with them. It’s it’s an interesting way to play like all of the stuff that these people live by, even down to uh the Uh I can’t remember what they called it, but the death house that’s up on top of the roof. Murder house. Right. The rules that uh go along with that and uh you know what uh why uh somebody might end up back up in there. uh just a lot of really interesting things to keep everybody in line, to keep everything exactly as uh as society, I suppose, says that it must be back in uh 1920s China. You

Pete Wright
want to talk about Yan’er? Yan’er?

Andy Nelson
Yar. She ‘s a ship yar is how it sounded like they would say it.

Pete Wright
Yeah, it’s a yeah, it’s kind of a swallowed console. Yeah. Um this is a it’s a really interesting relationship. This is the character is uh is Song Lin’s maid, uh is also the first character that she meets who um sort of shuns her. They have a little spat they never really get on very well. Nope. Never. This ain’t no sisterhood of the traveling pants, I’m telling you that.

Andy Nelson
No, yeah, it her it’s a really interesting relationship here. Uh clearly uh it sounded like Yar had kind of thought she was going to be the fourth wife. Um, you know, I’m sure it was kind of a mis a misplaced hope. for a maid to think that uh the master might pick her when in reality as we find out the master was just uh kind of sleeping with her. Um And uh you know, it’s an interesting uh character uh relationship between her and Songlian and ha how all of their uh just the animosity that Yar felt for Songlian, um really kind of unfolded and we learn, you know, that she has in her little maid’s quarters, she has uh kind of taken all the red lanterns that have been broken and has created her own little uh dream world surrounded by red lanterns where she’s got her little voodoo doll where she for Songlian and and curses her and stuff. It’s a really interesting relationship. And uh what I find so interesting about it is how that really builds to that last moment where Uh Songlian punishes her out in the courtyard and just kind of like makes her kneel out there. And I you know, I wasn’t quite sure how to read it because I read the whole thing where uh Yar collapsed like Songlian made her kneel out there and wouldn’t let her get up until she apologized. And Yar refused to apologize until she finally collapsed and it led to her death Um but I did read an article that said that Songlian just made her kneel in the snow and that was it. And I mean I’m not sure if I just misread the subtitles or forgot something. I wasn’t quite sure, but Uh the I think the the way that I read it I thought is a little more interesting because it’s it says a lot about Songlian that she would make her kneel out there until she apologized, and it says a lot about Yar that she would stay there and refuse to apologize.

Pete Wright
Yeah, and again, uh well and to your point, I think first of all, uh I read it the same way you did, uh, but I read it because that way because specifically when the first wife said we’re gonna go by the old rules. Um, you know, you have to you have to do this until and then later the head of the house came out and said, please just apologize and you can come in. Yeah, right. Right. So we have the mechanics all set up, but then she refuses to do it. And in the old system before the fall of the sort of Chinese cultural imperialism uh which I uh you know, going back to the critique that this film I submit is actually supplying, uh she would have apologized, right? She would have apologize. It’s not something you don’t you don’t hold out for the will of you know martyring yourself under that system. And so I think that is yet another example in front of these burning lanterns representing yet another thing. that is falling apart in this house inside these protective walls. It’s deteriorating from the inside out. Uh you know, it just keeps, they keep giving us more and more information or more and more ammunition. to support this cause that something is wrong in China.

Andy Nelson
Yeah. It was it’s really interesting. You know, another thing I wanted to talk about that I think is uh it there’s a conversation in the film that I think said a lot about the film and a lot about uh just kind of the direction the story was gonna go. There was a conversation between Songlian and the third wife, um, Mei Shan, and uh it was about how women really don’t amount to anything in this house. And it’s all it’s this game that they have about having to fool the others. And if you can’t fool them, you have to fool yourself. And if you can’t fool you or yourself, all you can fool is the ghosts and this whole idea that Ghosts are people and people are ghosts. And it was a really interesting conversation about just kind of how the women are viewed in this place. And then as we get to the end of the story and Mayshawn gets uh gets killed because of her affair that she has with the doctor And uh and Songlian goes into her place and lights all the lanterns and then everybody’s convinced that there’s the ghost of Meishan has come and uh lit all the lanterns and turned the music on and she’s singing and all this stuff. And then Song Liang goes crazy and is kind of wandering around and that’s how the film ends. It’s it’s interesting how this whole idea of people are ghosts, ghosts are people really kind of ends up uh foreshadowing this ending where Songlian kind of becomes Meishan ‘s ghost and uh kind of her own ghost. uh kind of this shell of herself as she’s kind of wandering the uh the um passageways uh kind of gone crazy. And I just think it says that, you know, this is this is this interesting world where if you can’t fit into this system, it’s just gonna crush you and leave you this kind of uh floating outsider and you’re not gonna be able to uh to be a part of it anymore. It’s uh I don’t know, it’s really haunting, but I I like that they have that set up in there.

Pete Wright
I do too. It goes back to this uh the sort of um I guess the hierarchy of suppression of women’s independence over time in China, right, at this period. Uh girls obey their fathers, women obey their husbands, widows obey their eldest sons and when there are no more w men around, elderly women just oppress younger women. Like they are there’s sort of uh aspirations of suppression and oppression of will. It is a horrible thing. When you look at the major you know, the w women in this film One of them ends up wandering around uh as a m sort of zombie. Uh w the uh one of them is s remains the sort of I d uh you know crazed sort of dominant sex slave. One of them we got a new one who’s about to become that, the fifth wife. We know what she’s about to become. And we have the first wife who has just become a shell of herself. They all end up being ghosts in their own sort of different way. This movie doesn’t leave anybody left. who isn’t who who you can’t make a case is uh a ghost right of their former self. And I think that’s uh that’s fascinating

Andy Nelson
It’s hard for uh me to believe that Jaggy Moo says that he wasn’t putting any symbolism in the street.

Pete Wright
It seems to get harder and harder, right.

Andy Nelson
But uh yeah, but I love that and I think you’re right. He probably was saying some of that perhaps uh in the context of his country. um trying to avoid it getting banned and of course it didn’t work, but um but I just think that it’s uh an incredibly powerful story and uh I love all of the stuff that it is saying.

Pete Wright
Wanna jump into first shot, last shot?

Andy Nelson
Sure, yeah. Uh the first shot, uh I’ve kind of already alluded to it, but it’s a close up of Gong Li as Songlian in conversation with her mother, although we only ever see this close-up of Gong Li, which lasts uh just over a minute. a single stop shot where she’s pretty emotionless through this conversation, but you can really see she’s trying to hold back some tears which do finally come out at the end. of this conversation uh right before some music fades up and fades to black. But this is the conversation where she’s talking to her mother about, you know, she says, you’ve been talking for days, I’m gonna get married. I’ll marry a rich man’ll be a concubine, all that. Let me be a concubine. Isn’t that a woman’s fate? As the tears drip down her face

Pete Wright
And the last shot, we’ve got a series of dissolves of some one pacing back and forth uh in her zombie state. She’s surrounded by her red lanterns, and she’s actually wearing the same university uniform she arrived in when you talk about Closing that loop. The shots of her get further and further away until we are way above the house and we are looking down into the courtyard.

Andy Nelson
Uh you know, it says everything about uh the structure of the society and how it takes a woman like this who is Seeming to be um s uh more of a strong-willed person, but who’s kind of uh willingly kind of gonna go along with the system and how the system crushes her I mean that’s pretty much what we get here.

Pete Wright
Yeah. Yeah, I think so too. Uh you know, I actually think it’s really uh it you know, in uh more than anything else, right? You just I think you just made the point, but uh this is one of those examples where it feels absolutely the first shot, last shot, absolutely intentional. Right. The way it opens on her and the way it closes on her. And the journey between those two points is the journey of her just sort of uh leaving behind a shell of what she was.

Andy Nelson
Absolutely. Let’s talk about the cast. Gong Li, uh really powerful character uh in this film Uh and it’s uh it is heartbreaking watching her driven mad. Um it’s f you know, it’s frustrating because this is one of those films where you could see it going a direction where She starts to understand the game and she gets knocked down, but she gets back up again and uh she becomes the essentially like the matriarch of the house. You could see the story going that way, right? Mm-hmm.. And so it’s very it’s very uh heartbreaking and frustrating to see it take this turn uh as we get into the third act where um where uh her friend gets killed and she’s driven mad. It’s not where we want to see this film go. Um, but I think it really just says a lot. Um Uh yeah, this is uh another of her films that she’s done with Zhang Yimou. This is her third film with him of his uh I think this is his fourth film. And uh between Ju Dou and this, she did a film called God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai, which I have no idea what that is, but I just wanted to say that because the title sounds so crazy.

Pete Wright
You know, isn’t it interesting that of the of the and I didn’t I certainly didn’t see that either. I don’t know if this one is actually fits. But this is the third, so these three, right, red sorghum and then Ju Dou and then this one, um, she is cast as the woman, uh, the young woman who is um, you know, somehow wed off to the impotent old man. Uh and in this film, you know, the old man isn’t necessarily physically impotent, but certainly he’s lost control of his house. And so it’s a different kind of like that concubine system is he’s lost control of that. And so um i it’s I think that’s a fascinating uh pairing why she keeps coming back for that role and why he keeps wanting to cast her in there.

Andy Nelson
Well, I they loved working together and they worked together quite a lot. So, um uh you know, she’s just She’s a really compelling actress. I really enjoy seeing her in films. And I feel like I want to go revisit more of hil her filmography. And I was gonna say I’d love to see her uh transition to some films over here in the States. before I uh um remembered that she already had in the horrible uh Michael Mann uh recreation of his old TV show Miami Vice. Uh she was in that, um, unfortunately. Such a terrible film. At least I thought so. Um, but she also was in like memoirs of a geisha, and so she had been in a few things. Um and uh I think it was funny. I was looking at her filmography and she was in What Women Want, the Chinese remake of that old uh that old film uh where was it mel Gibson, right, where he starts hearing everything that women are thinking

Pete Wright
Yeah, that wasn’t that was not a very good movie.

Andy Nelson
I never saw it, but uh maybe it’s best that I didn’t.

Pete Wright
It was not very good. Is the thing. No, yeah, she’s done she’s done a number but it’s funny, as much as long as she’s been around and as much as she’s done, she’s only got thirty-one credits to um her right now. I have to imagine that’s more and that it’s just the that she’s got more and this is just we’re seeing the sort of uh IMDb challenge of keeping up with all the Chinese titles. Is that possible?

Andy Nelson
It’s possible. You know, it’s it’s interesting ’cause when you look at the filmographies of the other uh actresses in the film, a lot of their uh filmographies are incredibly short. And I think that could be for that very reason where uh like uh you know, Cao Cuifen, who plays uh the second mistress, I mean she’s only listed with nine credits. I don’t know if that’s exactly true. But that’s all she has on IMDb. It could just be that there’s a lot more stuff out there.

Pete Wright
Hey He Saifei is May Shan, the third mistress.

Andy Nelson
I she’s an interesting character because we go into the film not liking her. She is the character that uh Essentially we hate because of the way that she’s behaving with um with Songlian uh and uh you know her first night with the husband and how uh Meishan kind of uh you know, pla Fein’s illness and uh all this so that she can kind of steal him away. It’s it’s I find it such a fascinating character, the way that she does all of that But how as the story progresses we kind of learn that it’s really the second mistress that is the one who’s the dangerous one, and the third mistress actually becomes kind of the friend of Songlian. And I loved that transformation in the film. I thought that was a great uh a great way to play with these characters.

Pete Wright
Uh Cao Cuifen is Zhu Yon, she’s the second mistress. The wicked one.

Andy Nelson
And that’s what I love about her, because she is so nice. And she’s just one of those people that you just want to hang out with because she just seems so sweet and she’s doing all this stuff for you and she’s giving you this gorgeous silk and all this wonderful stuff, but really she’s the one who’s like the most backstabbing and conniving. And it’s uh really interesting to see and I like the way that they play that before and after. uh Songlian finds out and how things kind of shift subtly in uh Cao Cuifen’s performance. Uh

Pete Wright
then we’ve got Kong Lin as Yan’er.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, she was uh you know, I don’t really have much to say, uh but uh it was a really interesting uh character and I liked the uh the performance here. Probably the same for everybody else uh is like they were really interesting performers, but looking at their credits and stuff. I just didn’t get much uh there’s not much that I know about any of these people, but I really found them all compelling.

Pete Wright
The ol the only thing that I uh the only one that I actually would wanted to talk about, uh you know, we’ve and we’ve got uh Jin Shuyuan uh Jin Shuyuan as Yuru. uh the first wife Ma Jingwu as uh Chen Zhouquan, Master Chen, uh Chui Ji Jiang as uh Dr. Gao, and then Xiaochu. uh as Feipu. This is the oldest son, the master’s oldest son, and this is the one point of story that I had a problem with. Apart from being bored with the pacing of the film, this is a point of story I had a problem with. I feel like they teased us that there was going to be an illicit relationship between Songlian and Feipu and they never delivered on it.

Andy Nelson
Yeah and

Pete Wright
did you see that coming?

Andy Nelson
I totally felt like I was gonna expect something to happen there and it never did. I guess it just never bugged me. about it, but I could feel it. Um what was interesting about that though is I read something about the original book, um, Wives and Concubines, and how there was more of that relationship that developed uh with Feipu.

Pete Wright
I wanted that. I feel like either put it all in there or take it all out. I didn’t need to see anything of Feipu in here. The flute scene was pretty, but really it didn’t teach us anything that we didn’t already need. Or no.

Andy Nelson
You know, it’s so interesting. I’m always curious about changes like that in scripture because yeah, I mean she does have this there is some interest in uh with her character in Feipu. In the uh the book. Um is that a change that they had to make to the script to kind of keep it from getting uh banned uh or uh I guess to allow it to go into production Um, I’m curious about that and why that change might have happened, or if that’s just something that Zhang Yimou wasn’t interested in, and I would love to know, but uh Never will.

Pete Wright
Alas. Let’s talk about uh let’s talk about cinematography because this is really where uh Zhang Yimou you know shines. We discussed last week he was a cinematographer first, he is working here with Zhao Fei. Uh what ‘d you think of the cinematography?

Andy Nelson
It’s beautiful. I mean this film is just it’s sumptuous, it’s rich, the colors are gorgeous, uh despite the horrible transfer. Um I love the way that the shots are so steady, uh there’s just so little movement, the takes are long. Um you’ll get little pans here and there, but it’s just it’s such a still film. And uh I think that it really um takes you to a place that’s really uh unsettling when finally when uh Songlian realizes what’s happening in that little death room upstairs and they and he she sees them um taking um uh Meishan in there and after they leave she runs to it and all of a sudden you get this handheld camera just like this crazy handheld like shaking all over the place. running up to that place and it was so unsettling. It just really kind of, you know, created an incredible tone. And so I think that uh Zhao Fei working with uh Zhang Yimou really knew how to work the camera in this film and r and use it to tell the story and i it fits so perfectly in context of everything going on.

Pete Wright
Well yeah, and to your point, like that last sequence is the thing that I’m most excited about, right? At that point I’m really it’s it’s a very energizing sequence and you know, to the credit of Du Yuan uh editor uh and uh Zhao Fei obviously uh but they end up doing this uh superimposition of kind of three of the mur sh shots of the murder house as you’re walking up or as you’re she’s running up to it And it ends up really making being that substitute for the even more aggressive shaky cam, the truly jiggly monkey shaky cam that I think it works in that sequence really, really well. Um it’s as you say, it is really unsettling. Um production design, uh Cao Juiping, the you know, art direction, incredible facility and the gorgeous lanterns

Andy Nelson
It was filmed at the uh Qiao Family compound uh near the city of Pingyao and uh it was just a perfect location for this and I think uh what Cao Juiping uh brought to the sets was just uh perfect. And for a film called Raise the Red Lantern Obviously, lanterns are gonna play a key part in your story. And the raising of them. And the raising of them. And I just loved the lanterns. They were just so gorgeous. And they were such it’s just like when a room was filled with those lanterns and it was just bathed in that red light. I mean it’s just like, oh man, just it’s so intense and just beautiful. It just it was so r uh just rich. I really just was so impressed. Also with the costumes by uh Tong um Wam Miao, I just thought uh just stunning. I mean everything just really it was just uh a visual feast and I think that’s something I have always loved about Zhang Yimou films. Um, even if it’s a film where the story might not uh engross me as much as some of the other ones, I still just find them just so visually stimulating and just enjoyable to watch.

Pete Wright
Other thing I had trouble with in addition to the pacing was the music. Now I know you love the music. I know you do. I love the music. I felt like I felt like Zhao Jiping was in my head banging on those drums. By the end of the day, it was just what happened so often. I thought I was closing my head in a car door repeatedly. Over and over. It was too much.

Andy Nelson
It’s so funny because as soon as I finished watching the movie, I ran and I bought the soundtrack because I just wanted to listen to it. Over and over. So good. Oh man, just the beautiful choral work in the film. That yeah, that clanging, the just the intensity of the clanging. Everything was just uh again, it just I don’t know, it just it wrapped me into the world. I completely loved what Zhao uh Jipping did. here.

Pete Wright
How did it do at awards season? Did the awards agree with you?

Andy Nelson
If this film uh did uh do really well at award season um it did get for Oscars it got nominated for Best Foreign Language Film it lost to Italy’s Mediterraneo. But I mean this was uh just one of these films that just um was received really well. I mean at the Venice International Film Festival Zhang Yimou won the Silver Lion. The film was nominated for the Golden Lion. Uh, you know, the Boston Society of Film Critics, uh, the Independent Spirit Awards. uh all these different critics. Uh l uh Los Angeles, the National Board of Review, National Society of Film Critics, New York Film Critics, uh just it just was praised left and right and it ended up winning most of the things it got nominated for. It so it really was something that people loved. And if you look at uh just kind of i after the fact, uh it’s on a lot of best of lists, um you know, best of the decade, um best uh you know best foreign film Um, you know, Empire has it, 100 best films of world cinema, number 28. So uh this is a film that I think a lot of people uh who have seen it just really fell in love with, were struck by what they what they saw here. Other than our friend Hal Hinson at the Washington Post and you.

Pete Wright
Me and Hal. Oh brother Hal. Uh now I assume this one was equally challenging when it comes to the budget.

Andy Nelson
It was. Uh yeah. They uh there was no information for this uh about the cost or the gross other than here in the States, unfortunately. The movie did have a limited release here, and when I say limited, it looks like it was just one theater, March 13th, 1992. That was the weekend when Article 99, American Me and My Cousin Vinny, debuted. Um that was when it opened. It did end up having a slow expansion because people did find it so uh captivating from March through October. So quite a number quite a long period of time for it to kind of have slow openings around the country playing It if five at the biggest um point in time it was playing in about 40 theaters, went on to make about 2. 6 million here in the U. S. box office, which is about 4. 5 million in today’s dollars And unfortunately, that’s all I have for this one.

Pete Wright
Then I think we should head over to Flickchart and rank it, Andy. Let’s do it. Flickchart. com, you can just swipe up in your podcast app of choice, and you will see the link right there for Raise the Red Lantern on Flickchart, just tap it, it will take you right to the movie where you can add it to your collection. And let’s see, I I just want you to know, Andy, going in. I recognize the greatness of the film even though I didn’t like it.

Andy Nelson
This is gonna be a hard one. There’s gonna be a lot of fighting

Pete Wright
That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I d I didn’t come to fight. There are a few that I’m gonna have to lay down the the fight, but not I didn’t come to f just to fight you.

Andy Nelson
First up We have Raise the Red Lantern or Mad Max. Raise the Red Lantern for me. See

Pete Wright
I No, and let me tell you, let me justify this, because I know I was bored. And just because it’s in the top half of our own list doesn’t mean I have to watch it again. So I’m gonna give it to you on the basis of the fact that it’s gorgeous and a lot of uh and I really enjoy talking about it. I think it is a valuable film to exist. Okay. And I don’t need to watch it anymore. All right.

Andy Nelson
Raise the Red Lantern or trading places. Raise the Red Lantern.

Pete Wright
Waiting it out. See, now here I would be trading places, but I also recognize uh what what the film means, Andy, and I give it to you.

Andy Nelson
Oh, well, thank you. I was gonna have to bring up Dan Aykroyd in blackface.

Pete Wright
You don’t you don’t you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to do that.

Andy Nelson
Alright. Raise the Red Lantern or aliens. I will say aliens. Aliens. Yes. There we go. Do you see how easy that was? This has been very easy so far. Raise the Red Lantern or LA Confidential.

Pete Wright
LA Confidential.

Andy Nelson
I’m gonna say LA Confidential.

Pete Wright
Yes, you are, sir. That’s right. See, we are gentlemen.

Andy Nelson
Raise the Red Lantern or my neighbor Totoro. I would totally different they put me in totally different places.

Pete Wright
They really I mean that’s just remarkably different. They’re both uh gorgeous works of art. I would say Totoro, but I can go either way.

Andy Nelson
I’m gonna also say Totoro. Okay. Look at that. I didn’t expect so much more fighting. Well, uh, you know, I mean they’re both like uh top-notch films for me. It’s just uh yeah, it’s just a different place for that one. Uh Raise a Red Lantern or The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, right from our uh previous series.

Pete Wright
I would stick with Priscilla.

Andy Nelson
I will stay with Priscilla also.

Pete Wright
I’m I’m more surprised at you than I am myself, sir.

Andy Nelson
Well, I guess it was those two that you gave me that uh that really could have helped. Uh Razor Red Lantern or the Social Network. Oh, the social network. I’m probably gonna say social network, even though uh I they’re both just really such great films Um I likely would watch Social Network um more often, but uh I mean Raise the Red Lantern is more beautiful, but I’ll say social network is

Pete Wright
Okay, there we go.

Andy Nelson
Ah, Raise the Red Lantern or Shauna the Dead. Which also has a lot of red you got red on you. I’d love to have somebody Raise the Red Lantern and say that. You got red on me.

Pete Wright
Uh oh you know, I was gonna say raise the red lanter, but because you made the funny, I’m gonna go with Sean of the Dead. Or Sean of the Desert.

Andy Nelson
Shauna. Totally Sean of the Dead for me. Yeah. I love that one. Uh Raise the Red Lantern or seven samurai. Seven samurai. I

Pete Wright
I can see why this one might give you pause.

Andy Nelson
I’m really torn on this one. Seven Samurai is sure as long. That’s what keeps going through my head. And this one sure feels long. Um, I’m gonna go with uh I man, I don’t know. I guess I’m gonna go with seven samurai. I’m really I could almost go either way on this one. That’s a tough battle for me. Uh all right, well that leaves Raise the Red Lantern at number 73 on our chart, which is uh a great spot for it, I’d say

Pete Wright
It’s a fine spot. Agree to agree. It’s a fine spot.

Andy Nelson
There’s so much agreeing going on. What

Pete Wright
what does this do for your Letterboxd?

Andy Nelson
This is absolutely a five-star film for me.

Pete Wright
All right. Well, this on this point we will disagree. I this is this is a two and a half star film for me. Two and a half. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Are you kidding? I kid you not. And that half star is Andy Love. Like that’s just for you, straight up. Wow. Yeah.

Andy Nelson
That is so surprising. I’ve I’ve like floored that it’s so low. You dumbfounded me a bit there.

Pete Wright
I did.

Andy Nelson
I you know, well I like to keep you guessing. I guess.

Pete Wright
You know, you just have to be in a space. Maybe that was it, but I y I did not remember feeling this way about this film the first time I saw it. I but I really want to highlight the incredible artistry that it that went into this film and the vision of the film, even though I didn’t really like it. It is absolutely worth seeing. But maybe wait for the Blu-ray.

Andy Nelson
Fingers crossed for me.

Pete Wright
Right?

Andy Nelson
One day, one day.

Pete Wright
Where does this take us next? We’re we’re uh we’ve got uh one more Zhang Yimou before The most current Zhang Yimou, which will end our series. So where do we go next week? We’re gonna bridge the gap between the two

Andy Nelson
Yeah, we’re jumping ahead quite a bit in his career. Uh we’re skipping over uh a number of films. The story of Q Ju, To Live, Shanghai Triad, Keep Cool, Not One Less, The Road Home, and Happy Times. We’re landing in 2002 to talk about his first foray into action films, Hero, with Jet Li, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen. Fantastic cast, great film, very much looking forward to it. The interesting thing is it came out in 2002 over in Asia. It wasn’t until 2004 that it finally got released here.

Pete Wright
When did when was Crouching Tiger?

Andy Nelson
2000.

Pete Wright
2000, okay. That was that kickstarted it.

Andy Nelson
Yeah, that kind of kickstarted the uh the wuxia uh interest that people had over here

Pete Wright
Well, I am very much looking forward to talking about that film. I uh yes. Let’s just say very much Especially after this film. Very, very much. Uh so that’s uh that’s what I got. I I I really I it wore me out this film, and now I think you know, Andy, I gotta go to bed.

Andy Nelson
Alright, well you do that. Unfortunately, I can’t until I Get my foot massage.

Pete Wright
Amazon giveth, Andy. As

Andy Nelson
Amazon always doeth.

Pete Wright
Uh I, you know, I don’t know. I’m gonna go ahead and tell you mine. Can I

Andy Nelson
You tell me yours. This there’s not a lot of uh one or two star uh reviews for this film because everyone loves it, Pete.

Pete Wright
There is zero value to the one or two stars. They’re all about how bad the DVD is, how bad the the transfer is. It’s terrible. It’s that bad. It’s that bad that even Amazon reflects how bad it is. Even Amazon Mine is uh which I think I can uh you can tell I picked it mostly for the title. Uh it’s five stars. Five out of five. Girls Gone Wild, communist style. Who writes that stuff? So there are no young teenagers ripping off uh ripping anything off for the cameras, thank God. But there are four women who are all concubines of a very rich businessman, and the things they’ll do for his affection are cold, calculated, and just plain great to watch. The drama is a well-paced ride through the youngest concubine’s entry into the new family to her breakdown a year later. How could that be boring? One day you’re in college, the next day you’re on your back. Eh enough to drive anyone insane. Without spoiling anything, I will tell you there are lies, plots, hangings, bloodshed, drunken betrayal, and so much more, my favorite foreign film. Ever. Asked a lot of leading questions in that review. I’m gonna go ahead and withhold answers right now. A lot of leading questions.

Andy Nelson
That’s just fantastic. Well, I’ve got a three-star. Uh I went with a three-star that uh you know again there aren’t really even that many good three stars. They all talk about the quality. And this one does too, but I just I liked it because uh the f well one, Jeannie wrote about it. The format apparently was a VHS tape. But her review says the DVD quality was good, but there were no subtitles. I watched it anyway I had somewhat a sense of the story. Clearly enough to give it three stars still. No you didn’t.

Pete Wright
No

Pete Wright
you didn’t. Oh geez. Thanks, Amazon.

The Next Reel. A show about movies and how they connect.