Farewell My Concubine (1993) 4K Restoration
Director: Chen Kaige Run Time: 171 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 1993
Starring: Ge You, Gong Li, Leslie Cheung, Ying Da, Zhang Fengyi
Country: China, Hong Kong
Language: Mandarin with English subtitles
About the film:
Celebrating its 30th anniversary, the complete, uncut version of the 1993 Palme d’Or winner and two-time Academy Award-nominated masterpiece has been restored in gorgeous 4K and will be presented in the United States for the first time ever.
Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou grow up enduring the harsh training of the Peking Opera Academy. As the two boys mature, Dieyi, with his fine, delicate features, assumes the female roles while Xiaolou plays masculine warlords. Their dramatic identities become real for Dieyi when he falls in love with Xiaolou, who fails to fully reciprocate Dieyi’s affections and marries a courtesan, Juxian, creating a dangerous, jealousy-filled romantic triangle.
Spanning 50 years from the early 20th century to the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, Farewell My Concubine (1993) captures the vast historical scope of a changing country while revealing the intimate and touching details of a unique, tender, heartrending love story. Based on the bestselling novel by Lillian Lee, it was selected as one of the “100 Best Films in Global History” by TIME Magazine and remains the only Chinese-language film to ever win the Palme d’Or.
About the filmmaker:
Chen Kaige is regarded as one of China’s most important directors and a leading filmmaker of the Fifth Generation of Chinese cinema. Known for films with visual appeal and incredible storytelling, Chen made his international breakthrough with his Palme d’Or winner Farewell My Concubine (1993). After he was forced to work as a peasant, soldier and factory worker during the Cultural Revolution, he was finally able to join the Beijing Film Academy in 1978 and graduated in 1982. He made his debut with Yellow Earth (1984) to immediate acclaim. His other notable films include King of Children (1987), Temptress Moon (1996), The Emperor and the Assassin (1999), and Caught in the Web (2012). His films have screened at Cannes, Berlin, Toronto, and other major film festivals, and in 2006, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Moscow International Film Festival.
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