The latest from lauded Chinese director Zhang Yimou doesn’t rank with his best films such as ‘House of Flying Daggers’ but it’s largely entertaining if hard to follow.
Shen Teng, left, and Jackson Yee in “Full River Red.” Zhang Yimou, the great Fifth Generation Chinese auteur and director of “Raise the Red Lantern” , “Hero” , “House of Flying Daggers” , “A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop” and the Matt Damon-starring “The Great Wall” , sets his sights on the Song Dynasty and a patriotic poem attributed to the real-life Chinese hero General Yue Fei.
In “Full River Red,” a film that has made a fortune in its homeland, Yimou brings a piece of Chinese history to life in the form of a sometimes comedic drama, featuring enough court intrigue to choke a dragon. Set almost entirely within the walls of a large brick and mortar collection of large stone buildings and homes separated by cobblestone walkways and courtyards, the film plays out like a medieval game of Chinese chess. Set in the 12th century, the story starts with traditional-sounding strings and drums, captions identifying the characters and a young woman using sign language who turns out to be the bodyguard of the prime minister of Song . The first of many throats is slit.
If you thought “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” was hard to follow , hold on to your popcorn, “Full River Red” is going to twist you into historical knots. You may notice that every time Zhang Da and the hot-tempered Commander Sun head off to another location inside the vast compound, they are accompanied by the rousing music of composer Hong Han . Notably, the “brave and resourceful” Zhang Da refers to Commander Sun as “Uncle,” even though the commander is considerably younger.
Occasionally, the subtitles contain anachronisms such as “totally screwed” or “paranoid.” I guess in addition to gunpowder and the compass, the Chinese invented waterboarding. A confidential letter carried by the emissaries is reported to have gone missing. We hear a poem by the recently deceased Gen. Yue Fei recited by the prime minister from his balcony and repeated by the vast army just outside the compound.
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