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All tricked out, but going nowhere

Joan Chen plays a sexy nurse in 'The Sun Also Rises.' PHOTO: COURTESY OF GOOD FILMS WORKSHOP

The Sun Also Rises (太陽照常升起) is Jiang Wen's (姜文) third directing project, and follows his award-winning Devils on the Doorstep (鬼子來了).

The film is beautiful to look at, but intensely difficult to watch. Jiang employs the much-overused device of telling a story in fractured segments, only pulling things together (sort of) right at the end; for much of the film, the audience is left guessing. It is not the satisfying guesswork of a well-constructed whodunit, but more a suspicion that the director is not being entirely honest or has inadvertently left out helpful signposts that direct the audience through the story.

The narrative, which is split into four segments, starts out depicting the life of a young country boy, played with considerable charm by Jaycee Chan (房祖名) and his young and mentally disturbed mother, played by Zhou Yun (周韻). There is a mysterious pair of goldfish shoes, a magical bird and hints of a complex backstory in Zhou's wild ravings. But then we cut to the city with Anthony Wong (黃秋生) crooning Indonesian songs to a bunch of balletic bakers, and a hilarious bottom-pinching scene with Joan Chen (陳沖), which is one of many gags that poke fun at the excesses of China's Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

But by this point, the suspicion that the director is not being entirely fair begins to creep in as the strong cast is frittered away in delightful vignettes that don't ever seem to lead anywhere. The only choice is to give in to the gorgeous cinematography by Zhao Fei (趙非), who was behind the look of Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) Raise the Red Lantern (大紅燈籠高高掛) and Woody Allen's Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Despite so much that is good about it, The Sun Also Rises is very much less than the sum of its parts.

Film notes:

The Sun Also Rises

(太陽照常升起)

DIRECTED BY: Jiang Wen (姜文)

STARRING: Joan Chen (陳沖), as Lin, Jaycee Chan (房祖名) as the son, Anthony Wong (黃秋生) as Liang, Zhou Yun (周韻) as the mother

LANGUAGE: In Mandarin and Russian with English and Russion subtitles

RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes

TAIWAN RELEASE: Today
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