Volume 39, Number 15 · September 24, 1992
Blazing Passions
By Geoffrey O'Brien
MOVIES DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
Red Sorghum
directed by Zhang Yimou (1987)
Horse Thief
directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang (1986)
The Big Parade
directed by Chen Kaige (1985)
Yellow Earth
directed by Chen Kaige (1984)
Raise the Red Lantern
directed by Zhang Yimou (1991)
Fists of Fury
directed by Lo Wei (1972)
Shanghai Blues
directed by Tsui Hark (1984)
Peking Opera Blues
directed by Tsui Hark (1986)
A Chinese Ghost Story
directed by Ching Siu-ting (1987)
A Better Tomorrow
directed by John Woo (1986)
Boat People
directed by Ann Hui (1982)
Rouge
directed by Stanley Kwan (1988)
Once Upon a Time in China
directed by Tsui Hark (1991)
A Touch of Zen
directed by King Hu (1975)
A Terra-Cotta Warrior
directed by Ching Siu-ting (1990)
In a coincidence of programming in New York City a selection of the commercially most successful Hong Kong movies of the 1980s ran at the same time as a retrospective of work (some of it only marginally released in its country of origin) by the director and cinematographer Zhang Yimou, who lives in the People's Republic and whose recent film Raise the Red Lantern was showing independently in New York.[1] The contrast could hardly have been more extreme. While confirming that both China and Hong Kong have produced some of the most exhilarating films of the 1980s, the two series seemed to differentiate not so much two regions or political systems as two universes, universes nonetheless scheduled to merge seamlessly in five years, when Britain's 150-year-rule over the Crown Colony finally ends.
Review, 7027 words
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