The Golden Era

Though it hasn't the sweep to be greater than the sum of its parts, the movie offers an absorbing mix of melodrama and historical detail.

Seemingly caught between a daring impressionistic approach and a pedantic recital of dates and locations, this three-hour endurance test is marked by sincere adoration of its subject.

This tribute is overlong and too reverent, conveying little sense of Xiao Hong the person and even less of her talent.

More a film about ideas and theories rather than a story that’s more directly involving emotionally.

A film which for the most part is enervatingly classic in format: stately, reverential despite the conflicting accounts the various narrators give of Hong's motivations, and often quite dull, despite its focus not on her work or talent but on the more salacious and controversial aspects of her personal life.