Critic Reviews

Although a lesser film than the stunning Ju Dou, this is still one of the jewels of Chinese cinema in the 1990s.

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.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie quite like Raise the Red Lantern, and, since I consider it to be a defining example of Chinese movie-making and one of the best films of the '90s, I doubt that I ever will again.

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]

Like "Ju Dou," the movie is a visual knockout, filled with vivid characters and operatic action, and it has at its core another movie-star performance from the amazing Gong Li, who after "Ju Dou" and "Red Sorghum" is fast on her way toward becoming the Chinese cinema's first truly international star. [24 Apr 1992]

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.

More than a succession of beautiful images, "Raise the Red Lantern" is very deft, very sensitive filmmaking. [27 Mar 1992, p.J2]

Raise the Red Lantern makes Jo Dou, one of the most celebrated Chinese exports in memory, look like a warm-up exercise. It's a cry of the heart and devastating. [11 Feb 1992, p.C5]

The film was criticised for trying to appeal as much to westerners as to Yimou's own countrymen, and was not approved of officially. But it remains a marvellously structured, richly imagined and well-acted piece of work, with a central performance that holds the attention throughout.

This film is about as harrowing a portrait of the systematic oppression of women as imaginable. [13 Mar 1992, p.F14]