Mei Lanfang

On my past, I couldn't stand Kaige Chen, a Chinese director who messed up Chinese films like "The Promises". It was a shame for me to admit that, so naturally when I saw his latest flick Mei Lanfang, I thought I'd possibly skip most of the part!

Seeing that I admired Leon in my childhood though, giving it a shot might make some sense, huh? What if he would save the movie to a certain extent? Who knows! On the other hand, I hated Ziyi Zhang for no good reason. Maybe she's been brilliant, and I called her the Nazy because I was jealous, ah-ha. Lots of people pre-judged the movie, me included.
Actually, just throwing myself 25 minutes into the flick, momentarily I forgot that Ziyi Zhang was a little bit hateful anyway! The movie was filled with up on downs as well as some historical scenes. Nobody should let the fact that you hate someone get the way of you enjoying a good movie.

Most of the settings were exceeding my expectations that I'd envisioned, and the music that accompanied were suitable. I knew that a good actor would become the character and draw you into believing that they were that person. For the most part, Leon did great work. Well, Ziyi Zhang, a great actress (I changed my mind), galvanized me to think that she was Meng Xiaodong. Bet I missed a lot when I first started out. Besides, the accompanying Beijing Opera in some scenes seemed to fit with what was taking place perfectly though I was totally ignorant of it.

When Yu Shaoqun, a newbie,appeared in the early scene, the camera zooms in on his face and the stiff appearance with too obvious white makeup making him look like a mime! His opponent, the wily old bird named Wang Xueqi was just jovial with his constant dignified grin. At this point, in the movie, most of the members were behaving politely but still a little uneasy with the complicated relationship. Sun Honglei who was supposed to look like an old intellectual, reminded me of Luxun. The shock he carried was alarming and it just felt that way. But in fact the two persons are as wide as the poles asunder. Considering the harm that could come to Mei by the association, Sun Honglei was an obvious saboteur for Ziyi Zhang in the story with absolute effort. Notwithstanding, it just made him a spoiled brat who protested for a well known person.

As people can imagine, I probably was not a right person to comment on this movie. Anticipating the lines, and protesting that things were not on the mark, with my exclamations of, "that's how it happened!", I tried to persuade everyone to see it. ("watch" means you empoly a VCR or something watching a movie at home while "see" signfies you go to a movie theatre seeing it. There is no gramar mistake though. )Earlier today, if I didn't make a slip of tongue that Leon was considered as the superstar when I was in elementary school, some people who doubted my prejudice somehow would definitely buy the idea that I was selling.