The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
More a film about ideas and theories rather than a story that’s more directly involving emotionally.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
China, Hong Kong · 2014
2h 57m
Director Ann Hui
Starring Tang Wei, William Feng, Zhiwen Wang, Hao Lei
Genre History, Drama
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Tracing the life story of Xiao Hong, one of China's most famous novelists and poets, who reflected the progressive thinking not frequently seen during the turbulent 1930s.
The Hollywood Reporter by Boyd van Hoeij
More a film about ideas and theories rather than a story that’s more directly involving emotionally.
The New York Times by Daniel M. Gold
This tribute is overlong and too reverent, conveying little sense of Xiao Hong the person and even less of her talent.
Seemingly caught between a daring impressionistic approach and a pedantic recital of dates and locations, this three-hour endurance test is marked by sincere adoration of its subject.
A film which for the most part is enervatingly classic in format: stately, reverential despite the conflicting accounts the various narrators give of Hong's motivations, and often quite dull, despite its focus not on her work or talent but on the more salacious and controversial aspects of her personal life.
Los Angeles Times by Sheri Linden
Though it hasn't the sweep to be greater than the sum of its parts, the movie offers an absorbing mix of melodrama and historical detail.
An epic adventure at ground level.