Gong Li's citizenship switch spurs China online debate Nov 13, 2008
Gong won fame in films such as "Red Sorghum" and 'Raise the Red Lantern" before making a mark in Hollywood with roles in "Memoirs of a Geisha" and "Miami Vice. " She married Singaporean tobacco executive Ooi Hoe Seong in 1996. Gong's cyber-backers said that as her husband was a Singaporean, it was quite normal for her to switch citizenship. But others disagreed, saying that her link with China was the source of her fame. The furor drew the mainstream media's attention. China Youth Daily, a... (Xinhuanet, China)
Boston Univ. to honor Zhang Yimou honorary doctorate Nov 8, 2008
Zhang is known for films such as "Raise the Red Lantern", "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers". His last film was the 2006 historical epic "Curse of the Golden Flower", after which he devoted his time to the Olympics. (Xinhuanet, China)
Zhang Yimou says Olympic ceremonies were huge task Sep 18, 2008
Zhang, who directed such films as "Raise the Red Lantern" and "To Live," said coming up with original ideas for the four shows was tough. "People want to see something they have never seen before, so it has been extremely difficult for us to be creative," Zhang was quoted as saying. (Florida Times-Union)
Awe (but no laughter) in Beijing Aug 12, 2008
Raise the Red Lantern and House of Flying Daggers, was tellingly selective in his characterization of 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. The ceremony focused heavily on the glories of China's ancient past but had very little to say about modern China - no doubt because so much of the country's modern history is marked by shame and humiliation. (Asia Times Online)
China Rises: Olympics Open With A Feast For The Eyes Aug 10, 2008
"I could feel the strength rising from the depth of my heart. This was the result of one month's training. That moment meant China is standing side by side with the rest of the world." The artistic director of the opening ceremony was Zhang Yimou, Chinese filmmaker of movies such as "Raise the Red Lantern" and "House of Flying Daggers". This evening's pageantry was the culmination of two years of intense preparation by Zhang and his extensive staff. (ABC 7 News, DC)
Bianco: Opening ceremony rewrote the record books Aug 10, 2008
Oh, and while it may not have made a household name of Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou known here, if he's known at all, for Raise the Red Lantern and House of Flying Daggers it gave him a credit we will likely remember from here on in. And he still has the Closing Ceremonies to go. (USA Today -- Life)
Tripping the night fantastic Aug 10, 2008
China's most successful film director, Zhang Yimou - whose films include Raise The Red Lantern and House Of Flying Daggers - won wide praise for the artistic and historic aspects of the ceremony. And his efforts, aided by the precision drumming of 2000 militia among a total of 15,000 performers, were helped by meteorologists who yesterday revealed they fired 1104 "rain dispersal rockets" into clouds over Beijing. (Sydney Morning Herald -- World)
Beijing Olympics Begin With Opening Ceremony Viewed by Billions Worldwide Aug 10, 2008
British soprano and Chinese singer Liu Huan also featured in a program overseen by Chinese film director , whose movies include ``Raise the Red Lantern'' and ``Red Sorghum. . (Bloomberg -- Japan)
Beijing's perfect opening Aug 8, 2008
Yimou's production, which involves 15,000 performers and 29,000 rounds of fireworks, will surely catapult him to a level of international notoriety beyond that he achieved with his Oscar-nominated films Raise the Red Lantern (1991) and House of Flying Daggers (2004). The ceremony is tipped to dwarf those of Athens and Sydney in terms of resources expended and expectations exceeded. (Sydney Morning Herald -- World)
Raise the Red Lantern at Covent Garden Aug 5, 2008
The real hit of the National Ballet 00004000 of China's London visit was the work it saved for last, Raise the Red Lantern ... On every front - choreography, music and design - Raise the Red Lantern is a distinctive and persuasive calling card for modern Chinese culture. (Times Online)
Leaked Footage Fury Aug 1, 2008
China's most famous film director, Zhang Yimou ("Raise the Red Lantern," "House of Flying Daggers"), spent the last three years designing the spectacle, trying to boil 5,000 years of Chinese history into a 50-minute show. Undulating white columns apparently simulated a waterfall, and giant blue whales were projected onto the strips of roof bordering the opening of the top of the stadium. (Fox News)
First step on the Silk Road Jul 13, 2008
If you've ever seen Zhang Yimou's wonderful "Raise the Red Lantern" (filmed near Pingyao in 1991), you'll understand. Red and other colored lanterns, small and large, blaze at every step along the cobbled streets, which are lined by shops selling all types of knick knacks. (CNN -- International)
Shanxis walled mansions May 8, 2008
Who can forget the scene in director Zhang Yimous 1992 classic Raise the Red Lantern, where Gong Li and the other wives of the manor wait silent and expectant at the gate to their respective courtyards for the red lanterns that announce the arrival of their lord ... No wonder Gong Lis character in Raise the Red Lantern eventually went mad from ennui. (The Star Online, Malaysia -- News)
Zhang plots opening act Mar 17, 2008
Zhang helped give Chinese cinema an international profile with pics such as "Red Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern," so its a fair bet the ceremony will include a few splashes of that color. For the moment, Zhangs main concerns were content-based. (Variety)
'Raise the Red Lantern' Feb 4, 2008
Raise the Red Lantern' - The Boston Globe ... Raise the Red Lantern ... Before she starred in "Memoirs of a Geisha," Gong Li appeared in "Raise the Red Lantern", a film about a wealthy man and his four wives. (Boston Globe)
* All tricked out, but going nowhere Nov 9, 2007
The only choice is to give in to the gorgeous cinematography by Zhao Fei (D), who was behind the look of Zhang Yimou's (i) Raise the Red Lantern (jO) and Woody Allen's Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Despite so much that is good about it, the The Sun Also Rises is very much less than the sum of its parts. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- World)
Kraft Group investing $10m in a Net start-up, Matchmine Sep 21, 2007
People can provide their ZIP code, sex, and age, and then rate their preferences, creating MatchKeys by telling the program what they think of a YouTube video of cats prancing around on two legs or rating "You've Got Mail" or "Raise the Red Lantern.". Once people have created their keys, they can launch a desktop widget called the gumball machine, which allows people to float their mouses over bouncing gumballs to sample new media that Matchmine thinks they will like. (Boston Globe)
Read on... Aug 20, 2007
Last film I saw: Zana Briski and Ross Kauffmans Born Into Brothels, Neil Burgers The Illusionist and Yimou Zhangs Raise the Red Lantern -- all in one night. Just got the big screen TV and couldnt stop looking at it. (Variety)
Ready to dazzle the world Aug 6, 2007
So, too, will be the opening and closing ceremonies, says Birch, who, with film director Steven Spielberg and French spectacle producer Yves Pepin, is a consultant to renowned Chinese filmmaker Zhang Raise the Red Lantern Yimou. "China wants to show off, to surprise the world. There are enormous expectations to produce something that is bigger, better than ever," Birch said on a recent, rare visit to Sydney from his base in Milan. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Sport)
New on DVD: Miller's '300' gets graphic Aug 3, 2007
Raise the Red Lantern. 1991, MGM/Fox, PG, no extras, $20. (USA Today -- Life)
For Chinese filmmakers, success can sting Jul 1, 2007
In recent months critics and younger directors have accused some members of the venerable so-called fifth generation of filmmakers - a group that came of age in the 1980s and early 1990s with award-winning dramas like "Raise the Red Lantern" and "Farewell My Concubine" - of forsaking their socially conscious past and selling out to the government. Perhaps worse, their films are not just being called commercial, they are also "boring and hollow," according to Cui Weiping, a professor at the... (International Herald Tribune -- Arts)
Bittersweet return of stolen treasures May 27, 2007
On tap are "Raise the Red Lantern" (a new 35mm print, playing on Wednesday and Thursday), "Ju Dou" (Friday), "House of Flying Daggers" (June 6) and, also on June 6, last year's "Curse of the Golden Flower" (617-876-6837 and ). Also at the Brattle, there will be 24 hours of Japanese anime from noon Saturday to noon next Sunday. (Boston Globe)
Zhang Yimou to chair jury of Venice film festival May 23, 2007
He received the Silver Lion in 1991 for Raise the Red Lantern. Leading lady Gong Li won the best actress award for The Story of Qiu Ju. (Xinhuanet, China)
The return of Zhang's empress Apr 20, 2007
In Ju Dou (1990; also banned), Gong played an intelligent, highly sexual woman married to a brutal and impotent older man; in Raise the Red Lantern (1991), another multiple prizewinner in the West, she was a concubine caught up in a brutal battle of wits with her master's other three wives. After that came To Live (1994), a saga of civil war, Maoism and the Cultural Revolution, which was again banned and after which Zhang was stopped from working with foreign collaborators for five years. (The Age, Australia -- Entertainment)
Has a famous Chinese filmmaker become a government apologist? Apr 18, 2007
After years of making films about intimate oppressions that frequently got him in trouble with Chinese censors (Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern), in 2002 Zhang made Hero, a dazzling wire-fu epic that was also an to authoritarianism and the "One China" policy of subjugating Tibet and Taiwan. The film was widely seen as a temporary capitulation, a way to get the government off his back once and for all. (New Republic)
Film cleavage splits Chinese Feb 11, 2007
The director, Zhang Yimou, earned a best foreign film Oscar nomination in 1991 for Raise the Red Lantern. Once based in Hong Kong and considered the bad boy of Chinese cinema, whose films were banned on the mainland, he has now been recruited by Beijing's Olympic organisers to direct the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2008 Games. (The Australian)
Eastwood film gets slim release Feb 9, 2007
Nevertheless, if youre a fan of Zhang Yimous earlier efforts, among them Raise the Red Lantern and The Story of Qiu Ju, youll enjoy the deliberate pacing of this film. If youre looking for something akin to Hero and House of Flying Daggers, look elsewhere. (McAllen Monitor, TX)
Sets, costumes stun but overwhelm 'Curse of the Golden Flower' Jan 19, 2007
" It's true that Zhang is one of the master visual stylists of our time, crafting some of the most visually stunning films ever made. And while the sets and costumes here are indeed jaw-dropping, they tend to overwhelm the story rather than support it. They take center stage (even the cinematography just doesn't register in the same way it did in "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers"), stealing attention from every single scene in the film with their colorful garishness. Even Shigeru Umebayashi's... (Foster's Daily Democrat)
A show that belongs on screen Jan 15, 2007
He found a director for the project in Zhang Yimou, who made the films Raise the Red Lantern and House of Flying Daggers. On Saturday, their collaboration returned to the movie house, as the Met broadcast a live performance of the opera to cinemas across North America, including 28 in Canada. (Globe and Mail -- Entertainment)
Gong Li is 'Golden' Jan 5, 2007
Her collaborations with Zhang include "Ju Dou," "Raise the Red Lantern," "To Live" and "The Story of Qui Ju," which earned her a best actress award at the Venice Film Festival in 1992. The glamorous actress is the face of L'Oreal cosmetics in Asia and has been named one of People magazine's "Most Beautiful People." She has lent her name to campaigns for children and environmental causes in China, and has worked with the United Nations in various aid programs. (AZCentral -- Entertainment)
No cursing Zhang's golden run Jan 3, 2007
They became romantically involved and made several films together, including Raise the Red Lantern. Curse of the Golden Flower, their first collaboration for nearly a decade, has been going gangbusters since it appeared in Chinese cinemas in early December. (The Australian)
Alex Ross on Tan Dun Jan 1, 2007
It is the work of the film director Zhang Yimou, who created Raise the Red Lantern, House of Flying Daggers, and Hero, among other contemporary Chinese classics. The monumental set, by Fan Yue, consists largely of a rising staircase that fills almost the entire stage; the Great Wall is represented by blocks that hang from wires. (New Yorker)
East meets West| Jan 1, 2007
Zhang, whose credits include the martial arts film 'House of Flying Daggers' and 'Raise the Red Lantern', previously worked with Tan on 'Hero', an epic film that won critical acclaim for its lush cinematography. Tan spent his time between Shanghai and New York while working on the project. (iAfrica.com)
