Another exorcism by Chinese master Chen Kaige (who directed "Farewell My Concubine" three years earlier),of China's disastrous meltdown in the early 20th Century. An old landed family sinks into decadence as the Qing dynasty collapses and the chaotic early years of a Chinese republic swirl around their ghostly ancestral hall and mansion gardens.

Into this scene returns an extended-family member, Zhongliang (played by Hong Kong star Leslie Cheung),ostensibly to position himself for his Shanghai gang's takeover of the estates. But Zhongliang's return home awakens old wounds and rips open all new ones in a family reeling from generations of drug use and the collapse of an ancient civilization.

Cousins, brothers-in-law, sisters, then become embroiled in a sick game of love, lust, and revenge. This is a very sobering film yet hauntingly beautiful at times. All performances, from a radiant Gong Li, down to the smallest roles, are superb. The character development is profound, the story compelling, and the production values are stunning. A first rate movie.

Opium is at the center of this story. It shows what it does to the Pang family when the elder son of the clan immerses himself in it. Pang An, a snobbish man, brings Zhongliang, the young brother of Yu Xiuye to the compound to tend to his vice. Ruyi, who is first seen as a young girl, playing with her cousin Duanwu, likes him until Zhongliang falls out of favor and flees to Shanghai.

Zhongliang's life in Shanghai goes through a transformation as he becomes part of a gang that extort money from wealthy women who fall in love with members of the gang, who then proceed to extort money from them to keep things quiet.

When the old man of the Pang family dies, Pang An is too far gone into his opium to rule. In a surprise movement, Ruyi is made head of the family and she has Duangwu serve as her adviser. The boss of the gang in Shanghai learning about it decides to send Zhongliang to lure Ruyi to their turf. Fate intervenes as Zhongliang falls madly in love with the ravishing Ruyi, who in turn, will discover what the young man was really after and who is instrumental for Ruyi's fall at the end.

The film relies on the visual aspects Chen Kaige has brought to the story. This is one of the most daring Chinese films as far as the sexual context that is seen on the screen. Never before has the Chinese cinema shown scenes that burn the screen as when Zhongliang and Ruyi make love.

Chen Kaige is a director with a style of his own. He co-wrote the screen play in which this film is based. The action takes place during the first part of the 20th Century in China before the period that changed that country into what it is today.

The best asset in the film is the way Chen Kaige sets his story in motion. He surrounds his tale with some of the most dazzling sets in recent memory and the reconstruction of the night life and the criminal around Shanghai in that period is effectively captured in the excellent cinematography by Christopher Doyle. The atmospheric music heard in the background is by Jiping Zhao.

The gorgeous Gong Li plays the adult Ruyi and the late Leslie Cheung is Zhonliang. Kevin Liu is seen as Duanwu and Caifei He is Xiuye. The supporting cast add a note of authenticity to the film.

This is one of Chen Kaige best achievements as a director.

This was a fabulous movie, instantly making it onto my list of favorites. There was so much going on between the three main characters along with the background of China emerging as a modern nation. The tragic ending brought real tears to my eyes.

The story revolves around the household of the Pang family, a very wealthy and traditional clan that lives in the countryside and has remained untouched by the rise of modern society in Shanghai during the 1920's.

*** SPOILERS ***

Yu Xiuyi is married to the son of the clan elder, Pang An, a cruel opium addict. One day, she sends for her much younger brother, Yu Zhongliang (Leslie Cheung),to come live on the Pang estate and tend to her husband's opium needs while he completes his studies. His playmates become his sister-in-law, Pang Ruyi (Li Gong),and her cousin, Pang Duanwu (Kevin Lin).

Zhongliang is turned into a servant and humiliated by his master and his sister. He leaves for Shanghai and hooks up with a crime family there. He seduces married women and the gang extorts money from their husbands. He's a playboy without a heart.

Back at the Pang estate, An suffers some sort of brain damage from his opium use, so when the elder dies, his younger sister, Ruyi, is chosen to rule the clan. She chooses her cousin, Duanwu, to act as her counselor, much to the chagrin of the clan elders who see both of them as inexperienced and not traditional enough.

Zhongliang's boss sends him back to the Pang estate to seduce Ruyi so that they can extort money from the clan, but when he returns, he soon falls in love with her. Complicating matters, Duanwu, the ever loyal cousin, also is in love with Ruyi.

Zhongliang is torn between loyalty to his crime boss, who has become a father figure to him, and his newfound emotions toward Ruyi. Ruyi had despaired of never finding a suitable husband - the marriage arranged for her years ago had been broken when the family found out she was an opium addict like her older brother. The love she and Zhongliang find for each other is liberating for each.

Zhongliang begins to feel guilty - members of his gang are pressuring him to set up the extortion. He came back to the Pang estate to exact revenge for what An and his sister did to him years ago, but he's in love with Ruyi and can't go through with his plan. So he leaves and returns to Shanghai, where his understanding boss lets him off the hook, sort of.

He is ordered to go through with the extortion of a married women he's been having an affair with, a woman he really loves. The gang boss sends for Ruyi so that she can witness Zhongliang's seduction and betrayal of this woman, hoping this will ruin the love between the two and return Zhongliang to his former cynical self. But the woman kills herself in despair and Zhongliang is destroyed by his guilt.

Ruyi returns to the country and is met at her estate by the man whose family spurned their betrothal years ago. He is now a modern, self-sufficient businessman in Shanghai, and after the two get along well, they both decide to get married - he's transitioned to modern life and doesn't care anymore what his family thinks of Ruyi.

But Zhongliang returns. Ruyi had thrown herself at him in Shanghai despite finding out what he was really like, and he had been afraid to tell her how he felt, but now he wants to reclaim her. Ruyi tells him she no longer loves him.

Zhongliang's sister, jealous and bitter about her isolation and reduction to second class status within the clan, nags him into putting arsenic into Ruyi's opium, something he did years ago to An as part of his revenge. Too late, he regrets his actions and tries to stop her from smoking the poison. She's rendered a vegetable just like her older brother was.

As Zhongliang's about to return to Shanghai in deep sorrow, Duanwu guns him down on the pier. And Duanwu, no longer meek and subservient but cruel and decisive, now becomes the head of the clan while Ruyi is carried comatose into the ancestral hall to witness the ceremony.

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The story is terrific and the acting superb. I've seen several of Li Gong's films and this is her best part of all. She portrays innocence and betrayal with great beauty and skill. Leslie Cheung is also terrific in the role of Zhongliang, really the main figure in the film. His character has such depth and complexity, and the actor does a great job of letting the viewer see the pathos within him as he's torn between revenge and love.

The cinematography is spectacular. The scenes in the countryside surrounding events in the Pang estate are filmed with a fuzzy aura to them, almost putting events into a dreamlike state. Shanghai, on the other hand, is shot cleanly with defined edges. Christopher Doyle, an Australian, also did the cinematography on several other Chinese films as well as recent entries like "Rabbit-Proof Fence" and "The Quiet American"", another film with stunning visuals.

For English speaking cinema fans, don't let the subtitles intimidate you. This is a great film, a beautiful film about a tragic love story, and one you really should see.