Farewell My Concubine : Novel, A

Rating:
Summary: Definitely worth investigating......both novel and movie
Review: It was a really sad story. I feel even more sad after the actor Leslie Cheung(the one who starred Deiyi) commited suicide a couple of days ago. I cried every time I watched the movie. What is really sad about Deiyi is that he could never tell the difference between real life and the life on the stage. So did Leslie Cheung.

Rating:
Summary: A companion to the movie
Review: The book will deepen your understanding of the movie. The movie, brilliant as it is, plays like a "montage of highlights" and cuts out a lot--as films generally have to do--like what the two heros were doing during the eleven years before they perform one last time. It also ends differently.

(By the way, if you're in the US, unless you've seen the DVD, you've only seen part of the film. The US distributor, Miramax, cut around 20 minutes out of the film as it's seen in the rest of the world, making the already fast pace even faster.)

Rating:
Summary: Left me in tears
Review: This book is not at all what I expected. I thought I would learn a little about Chinese drama and music and instead I was able to experience it for myself. I became Dieyi after the first chapter and felt all the pain that he endured. I was able to understand and connect to why he had never learned to tell the difference from fiction and reality. It is worth reading and now I am looking foward to seeing the movie.