Rating: 
Summary: Spectacular Chinese cinematic experience
Review: Ju Dou showcases the talents of both Zhang Yimou, its director, and Gong Li, its female protagonist. This was the first Zhang Yimou movie that I saw and it created a taste in me for more of such films. Zhang Yimou deals with complex human issues that has no easy resolution. Your patience with reading the subtitles will be rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: DVD OK!
Review: Just to contradict the reviewer who reports 'terrible DVD version'. While the 'extras' are thin on the ground, the picture and sound quality are pretty good in this intensely visual drama. The dark scenes show real blacks and the bright colours of the dyed cloths and illuminated faces register well. Perhaps the reviewer cited is concerned with lack of bright key lights on faces, and a distinctly arthouse feel to the cinematography (i.e. big murky interiors, with sharp silhouettes, contrasting with flaring stabbing bright exterior light. Sounds like natural...).Director Zhang Yimou started as a cinematographer (on Chen Kaige's "Yellow Earth", "Big Parade" etc.) so he should know what he is doing. China, incidentally, retained their Three-Strip Technicolour film processing technology under wraps through the Cultural Revolution, so when the Fifth Generation filmmakers came onto the the scene, they were big on reds, yellows, blues, etc., a vibrancy of image that hadn't been seen in Western filmmaking since the 1940's & 50's. Look at MIchael Powell's "Red Shoes" on DVD to see what I mean.
Rating: 
Summary: AIDA OR ANNA KARENINA?
Review: Reviewing Ju Dou is probably the most difficult thing I have had to do. Part Aida, part Anna Karenina, Ju Dou has just about every element of a timeless Opera - passion, rage and death. The climax is nothing short of spectacular - the movie, nothing short of a classic. The movie brings up all kinds of questions and explores the problematic of freedom. First, are we to laugh or cry? Is this dark comedy really that funny? Is she really trapped? Why did Yang Tian not take her offer and leave? Was China in the 1920 (or for that matter, even today) really that unforgiving? If this scenario is written about and filmed in China, written about into an Opera in Italy by Verdi and immortalized in a novel by Tolstoy, is this situation really that uncommon? What was the significance of all the dyed cloth? Was it a backdrop for the stark reality? Was it juxtaposed as a "potential" freedom of a life of color in a sea of black? As the camera lustily soaked in the light that was forcing its was through the drying fabric and all the philosophical questions dissolved, I found myself engulfed in a sea of color and waving fabric. The questions posed by the movie remain - to haunt other art forms in the future as it did in the past.
Rating:
Summary: Gong Li shines - As usual
Review: The beautiful Gong Li shines with this thought prevoking tale. A young girl (Gong Li), is bought by a man for his wife mainly to have his son to take over his business. The problem is that he is not fertile and an awful husband. She soon falls for a man who shows love for her and the plot thickens. The movie kept me guessing what will happen next. There were times I thought I had it figured out, but then I was thrown for a loop. I suggest to check out all of Gong Li's flicks, no flops for me yet! (^_^)
Rating:
Summary: Like a Greek tragedy
Review: The title character, a peasant sold as a concubine to a cruel old man, is played by the beautiful Gong Li, one of the great actresses of our time who followed this brilliant work with spectacular performances in The Story of Qiu Ju (1991), Raise the Red Lantern (1992), and Farewell, My Concubine (1993). Li Wei plays her master, Yang Jin-shan, the childless owner of a dye mill in the agrarian China of the 1920s. Li Wei's fine performance combines craftiness with iniquity reminding me a little of the late great John Huston with scruffy beard. The third character in the tragic triangle is Jin-shan's nephew, Yang Tianqing, a modest man who does most of the work in the dye mill. The pent-up intensity of Li Baotian, who plays Tianqing, recalled to me at times the work of Ben Kingsley. Ju Dou falls in love with Tianqing almost by default, and it is their ill-fated love that leads to tragedy. In some ways this visually stunning, psychologically brutal film about paternity and the old social order of China was Director Zhang Yimou's "practice" for the making two years later of his masterpiece, the afore mentioned, Raise the Red Lantern, one the greatest films ever made. The theme of patriarchal privilege is similar, and in both films Gong Li portrays a young concubine required to bear a son and heir to a cruel and ageing man of means. Even though the setting in both films is China in the twenties before the rise of Communism, both films very much annoyed the ageing leadership of Communist China and were censured (Ju Dou was actually banned), ostensibly for moral reasons, but more obviously because of the way they depicted elderly men in positions of power. Ju Dou is the lesser film only in the sense that Sirius might outshine the sun were the two stars placed side by side. Both films are masterpieces, but for me Ju Dou was difficult to watch because of the overt cruelty of the master, whereas in Raise the Red Lantern, Yimou chose to keep the more brutal aspects of the story off camera. In a sense, then, Raise the Red Lantern is the more subtle film. It is also a film of greater scope involving more characters, infused with an underlining sense of something close to black humor. (The very lighting of the lanterns was slyly amusing as it ironically pointed to the subjugation.) In Ju Dou there is virtually no humor and the emphasis is on the physical brutality of life under the patriarchal social order. Ju Dou is beaten and tortured while we learn that Jin-shan tortured his previous wives to death because of their failure to bear him an heir. The terrible irony is that it is Jin-shan who is sterile. He feels shamed in the eyes of his ancestors because the Wang line will die out with him. But a child is finally born through Ju Dou's illicit affair with Tianqing. (Note that this conjoining in effect saves Ju Dou's life.) Jin-shan thinks the infant is his son and briefly all is serenity. However, while two may live happily ever after, three will not. Notice too that now that Jin-shan has an heir, nephew Tianqing will inherit nothing. Will they kill Jin-shan? Will fortuitous events put him out of the picture? Will they find happiness? Will the boy learn the truth about his paternity? Yimou's artistry does not allow superficial resolution, you can be sure. Note the two significant turns the film takes early on. One comes after Ju Dou discovers that Tianqing has been spying on her through a peep hole as she goes about her bath. At first she is mortified, and then sees this as a chance to show him the scars from the torture she endures daily, and then she shows him her body to allure him. The other turn comes as the child pronounces his first words by calling the old man "Daddy." Instantly Jin-shan, now confined to a wooden bucket that serves as a wheelchair, divines a deep psychological plan to realize his revenge. He embraces the child as his own, hoping to turn the boy against the illicit couple. The strength of the film is in the fine acting, the beautiful sets, the gorgeous camera work, and in the unsentimental story that does not compromise or cater to saccharin or simplistic expectations. Yimou is a visual master who turns the wood gear- and donkey-driven dye mill of the 1920s into a tapestry of brilliant color and texture. Notable is the fine work that he does with the two boys who play the son at different ages. He has them remain virtually mute throughout and almost autistically cold. Indeed part of the power of this film comes from the depiction of the character of the son who grows up to hate who he is and acts out his hatred in murderous violence toward those around him. Zhang Yimou is one of the few directors who can bring simultaneously to the silver screen the power of an epic and the subtlety of a character study. His films are more beautiful than the most lavish Hollywood productions and as artistically satisfying as the best in world cinema. The only weakness in the film is perhaps the ending which is played like a Greek tragedy for cathartic effect. One senses that Yimou and co-director Yang Fengliang in choosing the terminus were not entirely sure how this tale should end and took what might be seen as an easy way out.
Rating:
Summary: A rare film with strong visual quality and story content.
Review: This is one of my all time favorite films for two reasons: 1. The story line is fascinating and complicated but never gets bogged down. Its almost too much story to try and tell in one movie, but it works. 2. This is some of the best photography I've ever seen in a film, comparable to "The Black Stallion" by Lawrence Kasdan.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark
Review: This movie is dark, so dark it is unbelievable. It seems everything and everyone, including the family, townspeople, even the son, would rather see the couple dead than happy. And not just happy together - even to have some peace or solace is absolutely unacceptable. The acting is superb, but the story overdoes it with the purely evil antagonists, the overwhelming unhappiness, and overpowering destruction of all hope. Even China in the '20s allowed for some happiness and harmony in the world.
Rating:
Summary: Dark
Review: This movie is dark, so dark it is unbelievable. It seems everything and everyone, including the family, townspeople, even the son, would rather see the couple dead than happy. And not just happy together - even to have some peace or solace is absolutely unacceptable. The acting is superb, but the story overdoes it with the purely evil antagonists, the overwhelming unhappiness, and overpowering destruction of all hope. Even China in the '20s allowed for some happiness and harmony in the world.
Rating:
Summary: It was a very good movie
Review: This movie was very good. It had one of my favorite actresses Gong Li. The love affair between Ju Dou and the servant was great but the old man she was married to was an obstacle they could not overcome. Beautiful movie
Rating:
Summary: wonderful
Review: This was the first Gongi Li film I saw and its visually beautiful with an unforgettable story and sensual sexy portrayal which makes it stand out as exceptional. No one is making films like this in Hollywood. The chemistry between the Gongi Li and Li Bao-Tian is amazing. The story is however a tragic one. The mendacious but wealthy textile factory owner Yang Jin-shan (Li Wei) runs a successful business but has no heir. So buys himself a beautiful wife Ju Dou (Gong Li) However he obvious impotence leads to rages and then violence directed at Ju Dou who is trapped in a horrific situation. The charismatic but poor right hand man Yang Tian-qing (Li Bao-Tian) falls in love with her which further complicates an already explosive situation. This film is a must see with no easy answers at the end
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