Temptress Moon

B-

Directed by Chen Kaige

Chen Kaige, the director of "Farewell my Concubine" (watch it if you haven't already) treads familiar ground with his period piece "Temptress Moon" but somehow delivers an unsuccesful and disappointing film, albeit a beautiful one to look at.

Gong Li plays Pang Ruyi, the sole heir to the Pang Clan's fortune after he brother is incapacitated by an arsenic laced batch of opium. Ruyi, herself an opium user, reluctantly takes over control of the Pang estate with the help of her distant cousin Pang Duanwu. Meanwhile, Ruyi's childhood friend Yu Zhongliang (Cheung) is busy in Shanghai, hustling wealthy women by bedding them and then threatening to reveal the details to their spouses. The two meet up once again when Zhongliang's boss, learning of Ruyi's fortuitious inheritance, sends him to the Pang estate to ply his trade on Ruyi.

Despite enormous potential, "Temptress Moon" never really gets off the ground, moving along at a rather deliberate pace until the film has run out of real estate, so to speak. Leslie Cheung and Gong Li, both immensely talented actors, aren't used very creatively in Chen Kaige's film, Cheung reprising his usual role as the callous ladies man and Gong Li playing the naive beauty, a character she is well accustomed to. What is most disappointing about "Temptress Moon,' however, is that despite the presence of Christopher Doyle (more on him later) and two very talented and magnetic stars in Cheung and Gong Li, Kaige fails to recapture any of the magic of "Farewell my Concubine" despite both film's historical setting and melodramatic overtones. I would argue that it comes down to the script, insofar as "Farewell my Concubine" boasts an extremely focused narrative whereas "Temptress Moon" sort of meanders along, trying to achieve a slow burn but rather losing gas as it sputters along.

Not all is lost, however. "Temptress Moon," as shallow as it is, is nonetheless a pretty sight to behold. Chris Doyle's cinematography is fantastic as always, further reinforcing the point that whatever your film lacks in substance it can make up for in imagery and beauty if you can convince Mr. Doyle to come on board (easier said than done, however, since Doyle isn't exactly a workaholic) Doyle's cinematography is always gorgeous but what impressed me the most about his work in .Temptress Moon' is how creative he gets with his camerawork without (intruding into the story). In one shot, the camera moves along in front of Duanwa as he races through a network of alleyways, then leaves him completely and turns around the corner, panning out on an empty alleyway and leaving Duanwu, who has stopped at a doorway completely out of the frame, until Duanwa reappears a moment later. It's these types of little visual details, subtle yet exciting, that make Doyle's work so consistently fantastic.

Doyle's presence alone saves "Temptress Moon" from mediocrity but it's still far from one of Chen Kaige's most succesful films.