80
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The kind of old-fashioned, grown-up weepie in which the hearts of men and women are cracked, and the shards flutter through the story. Its directness is the movie equivalent of hot, fresh popcorn.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
60
Celebrated actor Lin Chung, whose voice seems to articulate something within himself.
60
That decade-spanning finale allows the three leads to age onscreen and demonstrate their impressive range, particularly Liu.
70
New Times (L.A.) by David Ehrenstein
If this all sounds masochistic, it most certainly is. But the filmmakers have rendered it with such grace and subtlety that the spectacle of three very intelligent people ruining each other's lives becomes irresistibly romantic.
50
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The story is hardly original, but this well-directed Taiwanese drama paints an intermittently vivid portrait of life on the Chinese mainland in the 1930s era.
63
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
The many opera scenes are so beautifully mounted, they make up for the moments when the story veers toward melodrama.
100
Los Angeles Times by Gene Seymour
An exquisite love story directed with admirable subtlety and sensitivity.
10
Village Voice by Jessica Winter
This dreadfully earnest inversion of the "Concubine" love triangle eschews the previous film's historical panorama and roiling pathos for bug-eyed mugging and gay-niche condescension.
60
The film often teeters on the brink of melodrama and is saddled with a sappy original score.
50
An overwrought Taiwanese soaper.