Product Description

From the director of Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River comes Lou Ye's sprawling epic Summer Palace . Yu Hong (Lei Hao) is a rebellious young woman from a small Chinese town transplanted to a politically charged Beijing University in the late 1980s. The country's social turmoil is witnessed through its disaffected youth, whose newfound sexuality and activism culminate in violent suppression. Spanning nearly 20 years of modern Chinese history, Summer Palace projects the country's struggle for definition through the eyes and heart of a young woman illequipped to handle it. While drifting between the arms of two men, her love fervent for both, Yu Hong's existential crisis mirrors that of her nation. Will the chaos of society lead her to its same tragic fate?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60208 in DVD
• Brand: UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP
• Released on: 2008-03-11
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: Mandarin Chinese, German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 140 minutes

Features

• From the director of Purple Butterfly & Suzhou River comes Lou Ye's sprawling epic Summer Palace. Yu Hong (Lei Hao) is a rebellious young woman from a small Chinese town transplanted to a politically charged Beijing University in the late 1980s. The country's social turmoil is witnessed through its disaffected youth, whose newfound sexuality and activism culminate in violent suppression. S

Amazon.com
Summer Palace, a politically charged drama from director Lou Ye (Purple Butterfly, Suzhou River), telling the story of Chinese political upheaval through the eyes of protagonist Yu Hong (Lei Hao) who moves from her rural community to embrace life in Beijing. Spanning nearly 20 years, the film elucidates the mindset of the Chinese revolutionary youth during the 1980s and into the new millennium through its narration by Hong, who reads diary excerpts to set scenes. Though footage of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations spliced in among the dramatized imagery relegated Summer Palace to banned status by the Chinese government, the film feels tame compared to Western dramas. In it, Yu falls in love with Zhou Wei (Xiaodong Guo), who haunts her in later relationships once she leaves school. Strikingly romantic, Summer Palace is slow-paced but cinematically lovely, with long sequences illustrating dorm room life, dates, dinner parties, and Hong's intimate exchanges with girlfriends like Li Ti (Ling Hu). Dark indoor settings alternate with sunlit outdoor moments, to set a moody, reflective tone. As Hong matures emotionally and sexually, we meet other lovers like Xiao Jun (Lin Cui), but passion between her and Zhou Wei never weakens. To the film's credit, the love story doesn't flatten or oversimplify the complex historical plot that explains how innocent students could be considered threats to conservative political regimes. Though meandering, Summer Palace encapsulates an important moment in Chinese history and will especially enlighten viewers to the nuances of people struggling for freedom. --Trinie Dalton

Customer Reviews

an intelligent film about obsessive love
In the late 1980's, an inexperienced young woman named Yu Hong leaves her hometown and boyfriend in the provinces to attend Beijing University. Almost immediately, she falls into a passionate love/hate relationship with a fellow student at the school. This torrid affair plays out partly against the backdrop of the student protests and subsequent massacre that occurred in Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989. (The movie also takes place briefly in Germany, the other part of the world where significant social change was occurring in 1989).

"Summer Palace" plays almost like the autopsy of a romantic obsession, attempting to get at the root of why we love in the way that we do. A novice at true love, Yu Hong understands neither her undying passion for Zhou Wei nor her seemingly incessant need to keep sabotaging their relationship. The closest she can come to grasping this paradox is when she says to Zhou Wei: "I want to break up...because I can't leave you." Love is seen almost as a form of mental illness in this film - as a debilitating, all-consuming condition that one is powerless to control or "cure" but which, if left unchecked, can become the single dominant force in a person's life (we rarely see Yu Hong studying, let alone going to class). One can attempt to fill the void with other loves, but the heart always comes back to the same place.

"Summer Palace" is long and occasionally repetitious and the political aspects aren`t as effectively integrated into the story as they perhaps might have been, but the movie is beautifully acted by Lei Hao and Xiaodong Guo, among others, and features incisive and sensitive direction by Ye Lou (who, along with Feng Mei and Ma Yingli, co-authored the screenplay). This is a largely impressionistic film, concentrating more on mood, imagery and emotions than on narrative. The last hour of the film - so filled with longing and regret as the characters age and attempt to come to terms with the special thing they have lost - is particularly lyrical and heartbreaking and will haunt you long after the movie is over.

All told, "Summer Palace" is an intelligent and moving rumination on that mysterious force we call love.

Beautiful, dreamlike
The film is shot beautifully, I loved how it felt. Ye has a great touch and the performances are all top notch. I can understand some people not having the attention span for the film, but I found it quite moving.

The SF Chronicle's review was dead on for me: "the most important mainland Chinese film this decade"...

Not to be missed!
Here's a film that's absolutely not to be missed! Fabulous concept, screenplay, direction, production and magnificent star-making performances. Best love story I've seen in years!