It's 1977 Beijing and things are better. In 1924, Shitou is the lead boy in Master Guan's performing troupe in Beijing. Laizi tries to run away but fails. A mother from the brothel tries to leave her son with Guan but he refuses because of an extra finger. In desperation, she chops off his extra finger. They call him Douzi. It is a tough existence of brutal beatings and rigorous training. Years later, Laizi and Douzi run away. Douzi is so entranced by an opera performance. He becomes determined to take as many beatings as needed to be a star. They return to the troupe. Douzi willingly takes the beatings but Laizi hangs himself. Shitou and Douzi become close with Shitou taking the male roles and Douzi taking on the female roles. Shitou gets engaged to manipulative Juxian causing a rift between the duo. The story is rich. It is original. The acting is terrific. It is compelling. It is a long movie but it's an epic from another era. It's engaging from start to finish.

The story of two men, who met as apprentices in the Peking Opera, and stayed friends for over fifty years.

Right off the bat, I must say I do not get the high-pitched Asian singing. I say Asian and not Chinese because I know the Hmong people of Laos do the same thing, leading me to believe this is a cross-cultural thing. And not all the time, as is evidenced by the "normal" singing over the closing credits.

But that aside (which could probably be resolved by my reading more),this is a strong, semi-epic story of love and song. The costumes are beautiful, and in many ways this seems more like Japanese cinema rather than Chinese, with the elaborate costumes calling to mind samurai stories and other tales.

The changing political fortunes of Beijing, China and it's opera is examined in this ambitious dramatic piece, focusing on a pair of theatrical stage brothers and a woman who comes between them. Realizing that a good portion of modern day China's history has been spent under Communist rule, it's nevertheless distressing to witness the type of torture aspiring actors had to go through in order to perfect their craft. The scenes of beatings and personal insults, especially when the principal characters were very young, seem altogether too brutal in the effort to make them remember their lines and deliver them effectively. It would seem more of a detriment to me to have that kind of pressure inflicted on someone. Perhaps the most distressing aspect of the story has to do with Xiaolou (Fengyi Zhang) and Cheng (Leslie Cheung) declared traitors and enemies against the People during the 1966 Cultural Revolution, when all they were doing was what they had always done, performing their roles to the applause of an appreciative audience. It only goes to prove that one's fortunes are largely dependent on those in power governing in their own self interest.