Struck me as kind of like a cross between Raise The Red Lantern (which still haunts me, though my initial impressions were mixed) and Hero - the ritual and oppressiveness and Gong-Li-doing-her-thing of the former crossed with the martial arts and ruminations on empire of the latter. I didn't enjoy it as much as either of those other Zhang films - it's very heavy and, for me, doesn't pay off (it's melodrama dressed in period clothes) - and the colour-drenchedness started to wear after a while but there's no denying its very-ness.
(w/ parents)
