Lady of the Dynasty

王朝的女人  杨贵妃

China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 120 mins.

Directors: Shi Qing 十庆, Tian Zhuangzhuang 田壮壮, Zhang Yimou 张艺谋.

Rating: 6/10.

Stunningly mounted but bloodlessly played drama about imperial concubine Yang Guifei.

STORY

Chang’an (modern Xi’an), central China, Tang dynasty, AD 733. At a funeral ceremony to honour the dead on both sides of a border war, Emperor Xuanzong, aka Li Longji (Li Ming), is impressed by a beautiful young dancer, Yang Yuhuan (Fan Bingbing). The daughter of an official, she has moved to the house of her cousin Yang Guozhong (Zhang Junyu), following the death of her parents. Noting the emperor’s interest, his favourite concubine Consort Wu (Chen Chong) chooses her as a wife for their son, the prince Li Mao (Wu Zun). Encouraged by General Li (Gao Bo), the crown prince Li Ying (Wu Yue) becomes jealous that Consort Wu, Li Mao and Yang Yuhuan are becoming too close to the emperor. He plots an assassination but is caught and executed, along with two other princes, by the emperor. It later turns out that Consort Wu set them up so that her own son, Li Mao, could inherit the throne. When the emperor finds out from his faithful court eunuch Gao Lishi (Wu Gang), Consort Wu commits suicide in front of him and Yang Yuhuan. Li Mao becomes jealous of the emperor’s attentions towards Yang Yuhuan and, when she becomes pregnant, forces her to abort the baby. Yang Yuhuan goes to a Daoist temple for seclusion and refuses to come back to court even when the emperor, and then his newest concubine, Consort Mei (Ning Jing), try to persuade her. The emperor finally commands her to return and become an official consort, giving her the highest title of Yang Guifei (“Imperial Concubine Yang”). However, they sleep apart on their wedding night and only finally consummate their relationship later. Li Mao tries to convince the emperor about the growing power of a general, An Lushan (Mohetaer), but the emperor, more engrossed in probems with the Tibetans, sends him away to the border region. While the other princes worry what will happen to their status if Yang Yuhuan becomes pregnant, An Lushan organises a rebellion that imperils the emperor, the Tang dynasty, and eventually Yang Yuhuan herself.

REVIEW

A film about passion that has almost no passion at all, Lady of the Dynasty 王朝的女人  杨贵妃 just sits there looking beautiful – rather like its lead actress, Fan Bingbing 范冰冰. The story of the imperial consort who bewitched one of the Tang dynasty’s greatest emperors, Xuanzong (aka Li Longji), but paid a heavy price, has been the subject of a large number of TV dramas, operas and plays, and on the big screen has attracted directors Mizoguchi Kenji 沟口健二 (The Princess Yang Kwei-Fei 杨贵妃, 1955, with Kyo Machiko 京マチ子 and Mori Masayuki 森雅之) and Li Hanxiang 李翰祥 (The Magnificent Concubine 杨贵妃, 1962, with Li Lihua 李丽华 and Yan Jun 严俊). This latest version – the first feature film in half-a-century – starts earlier than Li’s Shaw Brothers production, detailing Yang Guifei’s first marriage and the palace intrigue that led to her becoming Xuanzong’s favourite concubine. But despite lavish sets, gorgeous costumes, sumptuous widescreen photography and excellent visual effects, it has a bloodless feel and performances that, for the most part, just punch the clock.

Fan, 34, previously played the role in the 30-part Mainland TV drama Da Tang furong yuan 大唐芙蓉园 (2007), opposite Taiwan’s Zhao Wenxuan [Winston Chao] 赵文瑄 as the emperor, and she’s been the only constant element in the long genesis of Lady. After two years of planning, it was originally announced in autumn 2011 as a China-Japan co-production to be directed by South Korea’s Kwak Jae-yong 곽재용 | 郭在容 (My Sassy Girl 엽기적인 그녀, 2001; The Classic 클래식, 2003), but shooting halted after a few days in early 2012, and Kwak returned home in March. The project, minus its Japanese money, re-started a year-and-a-half later under veteran Mainland director Tian Zhuangzhuang 田壮壮 and with a new script, and the finished film finally emerged almost two years later, with Fan still in the lead role but with a fresh cast. The print credits a “directing unit” 导演组  of Shi Qing 十庆, Tian Zhuangzhuang and Zhang Yimou 张艺谋, with Shi Qing also getting solo credit as director.

Shi Qing (aka Cheng Shiqing 程十庆), is a Beijing-born, former telecoms executive (for Hong Kong-based PCCW) and Chinese cultural essayist/writer in his mid-50s. He earlier wrote scripts for the least prestigious productions by Huang Shuqin 黄蜀芹 (Crossing Border Action 超国界行动, 1986) and Zhang Yimou (Code Name “Cougar” 代号美洲豹, 1988), and more recently was one of seven writers on Somewhere Only We Know 有一个地方只有我们知道 (2015), the weakest movie so far by director-actress Xu Jinglei 徐静蕾. Zhang and Tian appear to have lent their expertise to the neophyte director out of personal friendship: Zhang’s influence can perhaps be seen in the spectacular opening sequence of Yang Guifei dancing in an Olympics-like mass setpiece, while Tian seems to have been an on-set directing advisor.

Technically, the film is utterly smooth, with top talent hired in all departments. The photography by Hou Yong 侯咏, who’s worked with both Tian and Zhang in the past, fairly glistens; and the costumes by Japan’s Wada Emi 和田惠美 (Reign of Assassins 剑雨, 2010), editing by Hong Kong ace Zhang Shuping 张叔平 [William Chang], sets by Hong Kong’s Huang Jia’neng 黄家能 [Eddy Wong] (Let the Bullets Fly 让子弹飞, 2010) and music by distinguished Polish composer Zbigniew Preisner all have a tangible sensuousness.

The problems start with the bitty script, credited to Shi Qing, Wu Nan 吴楠 and Bian Zhihong 卞智弘 (the latter two from Zhang’s Curse of the Golden Flower 满城尽带黄金甲, 2006), which frames the whole film as a reminiscence by an envoy from the Byzantine (aka Eastern Roman) Empire who’s looking to form an alliance with the Tang against the Muslim Umayyad Caliphate that lies between them. The device is simply distracting, especially as played by US actor Steve Boergadine (who keeps pronouncing “Tang” as “Tong”), and is only thinly developed on a political level. Instead, his character is mostly used to propagandise the Tang, extravagantly contrasting its learning and sophistication and cosmopolitanism with the empty pomp of the Eastern Roman Empire in curiously rotund English dialogue. The nationalist message is hardly subtle.

Though the film includes more detail about Yang Guifei’s story than either Mizoguchi’s or Li’s movies, the result is still best described as a fantasia on a theme. Fan looks no more like the real-life character (who was reportedly plumpish) than either Kyo or Li Lihua, and certainly not 14 when the story begins. That’s fair enough in a movie; but more importantly Fan lacks either Kyo’s fragility or Li’s commanding presence, both of which were used by the earlier directors in dramatic ways. Though Fan looks both stately and dreamy by turns, she acts in a coldly calculated way, and strikes no sparks with the wooden Li Ming 黎明 [Leon Lai] as the emperor.

The closest Fan comes to a moving performance is in her final speech to the emperor’s troops (a setpiece in any telling of the story), but it’s not enough. With stars like Chen Chong 陈冲 [Joan Chen] (despatched at an early stage) and Ning Jing 宁静 (in a nothing role as another concubine) not given many chances, and singer-actor-model Wu Zun 吴尊 (My Kingdom 大武生, 2011) painfully weak again as Yang Guifei’s first husband, it’s left to character actor Wu Gang 吴刚, as the influential court eunuch Gao Lishi, to bring some kind of subtlety to the table. He almost singlehandedly represents the court politics that the audience is told are tearing the Tang apart.

The Chinese title literally means “Dynasty Woman Yang Guifei”.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Chunqiu Hengtai Media (CN), China Film (CN), A Blissful Return Pictures (CN), ESA Cultural Investment (Beijing) (CN), Hanbojiasheng (Beijing) Movie & TV Investment (CN), Dalian Radio & Television Media (CN). Produced by ESA Cultural Investment (Beijing) (CN), China Film (CN).

Script: Shi Qing, Wu Nan, Bian Zhihong. Photography: Hou Yong. Editing: Zhang Shuping [William Chang], Zong Linyi, Wang Yongjie, Hu Shuzhen, Ye Wanting, Gao Ruiyang. Music: Zbigniew Preisner, Guo Sida, Feng Jin. Art direction: Huang Jia’neng [Eddy Wong], Wang Kuo, Zhao Xuehao, Zhong Yifeng. Costume design: Wada Emi. Sound: Chen Guang. Action: Ling Zhihua, Yi Yong. Martial arts: Ni Haifeng. Special effects: Shen Yongquan. Visual effects: Wang Wenjia (Image Tang Studio). Choreography: Gu Lei, Fei Bo. Executive directors: Chen Xiaolei, Li Zhi.

Cast: Fan Bingbing (Yang Yuhuan/Yang Guifei), Li Ming [Leon Lai] (Emperor Xuanzong/Li Longji), Wu Zun (Li Mao, prince), Wu Gang (Gao Lishi, court eunuch), Chen Chong [Joan Chen] (Consort Wu), Ning Jing (Consort Mei), Chen Baoguo (imperial physician), Wen Zhang (imperial guards general), Qin Yi (Xu Gu, Daoist temple head nun), Tu Honggang (Chen Xuanli, general), Wu Yue (Li Ying, crown prince), Mohetaer (An Lushan, general), Zhang Junyu (Yang Guozhong), Steve Boergadine (Tacitus, Byzantine Empire envoy), Sam Voutas (Byzantine Empire deputy envoy), Wu Chao (Li Heng, crown prince), Zhang Qi (Li Linfu), Jin Hao (fourth prince), Liu Chao (sixth prince), Yang Junyu (fifth prince), Yang Yi (eighth prince), Zhang Yifan (Li Guinian), Gao Bo (Li, general), Yin Yi (Li Heng’s wife), Yuan Yu (Weifei, Li Mao’s second wife), Yu Yang (Shi Siming), Jiang Bing (Tian Chengsi), Sun Chenxi (General Li’s daughter), Yu Lu, Yu Xuejiao (Yuhuan’s girl friends), Wang Longhua, Ma Zhou (generals), Han Xinmin (deserted hall keeper), Chen Yian (young Li Ying), Cao Yingrui (young fifth prince), Huo Shaoyi (young eighth prince), Guo Hongqing (Tang standard-bearer).

Release: China, 30 Jul 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 30 Oct 2015.)

ends