Arguably China's most successful commercial director, Feng Xiaogang (馮小剛) has been famed for his contemporary black comedies that take a sober look at the nation's increasingly materialistic society. Yet in his latest film The Banquet (夜宴), Feng makes a swift shift from his previous lauded style, assembling an impeccable team for the sumptuous historical drama that is an idiosyncratic mixture of cinema and theater to tell of a classical tragedy in both Eastern and Western cultural contexts.
Loosely based on Shakespeare's Hamlet and infused with the spirit of Macbeth, the film is set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (10th century China), a tumultuous time of changing dynasties and murderous royal schemes haunting the empire. Emperor Li (Ge You) usurps the throne by murdering his brother, and lusts after the late emperor's young wife Empress Wan (Zhang Ziyi), who has harbored a secret love for her stepson Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu).
After Empress Wan — Wu's childhood sweetheart — becomes his stepmother and he exiles himself in a world of dance and music in a faraway land, the melancholy prince escapes the assassins dispatched by his uncle and returns to the palace for revenge.
Delicate by nature, Wu Luan fails to revenge his father's death. Empress Wan, now Li's wife, gradually realizes that in order to maintain her position and save her love, she must carry out the murder herself. Step by step, all the individuals are drawn into a labyrinth of their own making and led to a fated doom.
Under Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip's (葉錦添) visually opulent yet stately sets and the stifling, funeral color tones of deep black, green and crimson, the film successively creates a theatrical site where the power of tragedy resides in each individual's inability to control his or her life in the face of a downward-spiraling web of desire, love and lust. It's a sealed world where a sense of impending doom permeates the air of the imperial court and the destructive desire quietly devours its creators.
The highly stylized look of the film and sometimes overly literary dialogues have triggered criticism from critics and audiences, saying it is a failed hybrid of East and West and devoid of content. But in Feng's defense, the director takes up the challenge to play against the conventional and delivers a touch of ingenuity in what he calls an Eastern opera.
Take the introductory scene of Wu Luan for example. The masked dancers in white who surround the prince in a multi-tiered bamboo theater in a forest are shot in such visually stunning compositions that one can not fail to recognize the beauty inherent in modern theater.
Later when the new emperor's assassins reach the forest, the ensuing martial-art sequence is masterly transformed into a ballet dance heavily stylized with acrobatic stunts, flying and slow motion by renowned action choreographer Yuen Wo-ping (袁和平). The spraying blood on the bamboo theater stands in an intriguing contrast to the exquisite dance number where masked acrobats elude the swords with athletic stunts.
Compared to Zhang Yimou's (張藝謀) hollow martial art flick House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏) and Chen Kaige's (陳凱歌) kung-fu fantasia The Promise (無極), The Banquet doesn't stray from an acceptable storyline, even though sometimes the less than modern choice of wording can seem contrived. A flaw to many, the singular blending of Shakespearean refinement and Feng's trademark sense of humor nevertheless maintains a fine balance without falling into a campy trap, eliciting hearty laughs rather than ridiculing sneers from the members of audiences.
The pronounced theatricality of the film may be both director Feng's achievement and failure. Yet in the colossal production where talented actors like Ge You, Zhang Ziyi, Daniel Wu and Zhou Xun meet the expectation to deliver convincing performances, Feng emerges as an unfamiliar figure in the eyes of those who typecast him as “master of humor” and daringly puts forth his innovative adaptation of the popular genre with a twist of avant-garde spirit.
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