Raise the Red Lantern
Nineteen-year-old Songlian, a promising student whose family has been destroyed by her father's death, is forced to abandon her studies and marry into wealth, becoming the fourth and newest concubine of the aging, unseen Master Chen. Inside his walled estate, she discovers a household ruled by a merciless ritual: each night, red lanterns are lit outside the chambers of whichever wife the master chooses to visit, granting her privilege and status while the others are cast into cold irrelevance. Songlian is drawn into the orbit of her rivals, each shaped by years of fighting for the same scraps of attention. Determined at first to rise above the games, Songlian is gradually worn down by isolation and humiliation until she strikes back, trading secrets and favors to secure her place in Master Chen’s hierarchy. As petty cruelty turns even more dire, Songlian is forced to confront what these desperate measures will cost her soul.
“As visually striking as it is dramatically effective,” Zhang Yimou’s Academy Award-nominated Raise the Red Lantern sumptuously captures 1920s China while “subtly exploring the politics of power and control” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times). One of international cinema’s greatest stars of the era, Gong Li is “nuanced and understated” (Chicago Reader) as the stifled young woman forced into a repressive world of concubinage. Newly restored, the film stands as one of the defining works of Fifth Generation Chinese cinema and international film of the 1990s.
The 4K restoration of Raise the Red Lantern was carried out by the Udine Far East Film Festival on the occasion of its 26th edition. The original image and sound negatives were used under the supervision of Director Zhang Yimou. The vintage positive copy, presented at the 1991 Venice International Film Festival and preserved at the Venice Biennale's Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts, was used for color reference. The restoration was made in 2024 at L'Immagine Ritrovata (Hong Kong - Bologna).
"Raise the Red Lantern is, first and foremost, an extraordinarily beautiful film (Yimou is arguably the most gifted artist working today when it comes to the use of vibrant primary colors and light), but it's also a very accessible and powerful tale of love, deceit, murder, and madness." - Randy Pitman, Video Librarian
Cast
- Gong Li
- Saifei He
- Jingwu Ma
- Cuifen Cao
- "Do Yourself a Favor and See RAISE THE RED LANTERN. One of the greatest of films...the movie is a masterpiece. [A] haunting sonata of color, light, composition, mood, and sound, without diluting its slow-burn savagery. Through such simple but evocative images, Zhang creates a whole world of suspicion and sadness. His film is 35 years old this year, but it too feels eternal."
- "Critic's Pick! A beautifully crafted and richly detailed feat of consciousness-raising and a serious drama with the verve of a good soap opera.... [A]s visually striking as it is dramatically effective."
- "Gong Li gives a decade-defining performance in an addictively ruthless masterpiece. [A] thrilling, fascinating study in intimate political savagery and a ruthless competition for the right to exist."
- "Impeccably fashioned, ferociously anti-patriarchal...[Gong Li's] quintessential vehicle."
- "A Chinese film of voluptuous physical beauty and angry passions."
- "Zhang took a stark tale of female oppression and turned it into a haunting sonata of color, light, composition, mood, and sound, without diluting its slow-burn savagery."
- "[T]here is the sensuous pleasure of the architecture, the fabrics, the color contrasts, the faces of the actresses. But beneath the beauty is the cruel reality of this life, just as beneath the comfort of the rich man’s house is the sin of slavery."
- "Raise the Red Lantern is breathtaking."
- "Gong Li delivers a performance of exquisite expressiveness that, like the film itself, is unnerving in its emotional nakedness."
- "Zhang’s film is a biting examination of sexual politics, mandarin-style. Also stunningly gorgeous to look at, this melodrama transcends all borders and eras to speak to the ages."
- "[A] thrilling, fascinating study in intimate political savagery and a ruthless competition for the right to exist. The women are pitted against each other and their tragedy is that they do not realise that there is no difference between them; they are all decorative items, preserved, cherished or snuffed out like the red lanterns themselves."
- "“Raise the Red Lantern” is an emotionally immersive film that is brilliantly acted and visually breathtaking."
- "With its beautiful look and haunting themes and sublime performances, Raise The Red Lantern is Yimou's master work."
- "There aren’t many films that I consider perfect, but this has long been at the top of my list of incredible films...Thirty-five years later, its examination of institutionalized misogyny, the illusion of privilege, and the damage inflicted when people are forced to compete for basic dignity remains devastating."
Gallery
Awards & Recognition
Silver Lion
Venice Film Festival
FIPRESCI Prize
Venice Film Festival
Best Foreign Language Film
New York Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Foreign Language Film
National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA
Best Cinematography
National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA
Foreign Language Film of the Year
London Critics Circle Film Awards
Best Film not in the English Language
BAFTA Awards
Best Actor/Actress
Academy Award of Beijing Film Academy
Top Foreign Films
National Board of Review, USA
Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Awards, USA
Toronto Int'l. Film Festival
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