The English title "Farewell My Concubine" is a literal translation that can't possibly capture the beautiful tragedy in history known to everyone in China as "霸王别姬".
The movie follows the poignant lives of two young trainees as they go through brutal Peking opera schooling that included unimaginable physical as well as psychological torture; enjoy fleeting moments of fame during warring years and suffer endless humiliations in various ideological purging that culminated into the horrific Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural revolution, homosexuality and prostitution remain heavy subjects in mainland movies. Farewell blatantly and relentlessly touched all three.
This movie won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival in 1993, becoming the first Chinese film to win the award and remains the only Chinese-language film to have won the award. Farewell also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film as well as being nominated for two Academy Awards. Director Chen Kaige (陈凯歌) remains a leading figure in Asian cinema today.
In an amazing twist of fate, this much acclaimed film was snubbed by the award scenes of mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan at the time but has become an well-accepted classic with devoted cult audience.
Leslie Cheung's portrayal of the gender-bending protagonist Chen Dieyi (程蝶衣) is simply unsurpassable and without whom the movie wouldn't have existed in the first place.
From a teen idol to Hong Kong's favorite entertainer, Leslie had by early 90s grown into a well-crafted and meticulously detail-oriented actor.
This movie should be available even in your local library.
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