Raise the Red Lantern

It's an impressive achievement, both as storytelling and as filmmaking. But then, that's what we've become accustomed to from this director. [26 Jun 1992, p.09]

This film, based on the novel Wives and Concubines by Su Tong, can no doubt be interpreted in a number of ways – as a cry against the subjection of women in China, as an attack on feudal attitudes, as a formal exercise in storytelling – and yet it works because it is so fascinating simply on the level of melodrama.

Raise the Red Lantern, a beautifully crafted and richly detailed feat of consciousness-raising and a serious drama with the verve of a good soap opera, is strictly about the women who manage to live under this arrangement.

Raise the Red Lantern, an Oscar nominee for best foreign-language film, is the finest film to date by Zhang Yimou. [12 Jun 1992, p.8]

Raise the Red Lantern is a little cold in its austere formality -- in some ways, it feels overly refined and controlled, with nothing left to chance. But it's a beautiful, powerful film, and an unusually intelligent one. [01 Apr 1992, p.E1]

Ultimately Raise the Red Lantern is a damning parable about China’s internecine politics.

As gorgeous as it is, "Raise the Red Lantern" never achieves any momentum or weight.