Raise The Red Lantern (US Version) DVD Region All

Forced by her stepmother to give up her studies at university, a young 19-year-old Songlian (Gong Li) agrees to take a husband - but on her own terms. If she must marry, she wants to marry a rich man. Thus, Songlian becomes the Fourth Mistress of the rich Master of the Chen household. She is given her own maid, Yang, and soon learns the ancient customs and rituals of the household. Each night the Master chooses one of his four wives to spend the night with and the fortunate recipient of the Master's favor is honoured with a foot massage by one of the servants, while the red lanterns are lit in their quarter. However, Songlian soon also meets the Master's other three wives, each of them practised competitors for his attentions. The arrival of a new, young and pretty Fourth Mistress intensifies the rivalries and scheming of the other women, particularly the Third Mistress, a beautiful former opera singer.

More than just a beautifully composed and photographed film, Raise the Red Lantern is also much more than just a period piece about ancient customs, rituals and outdated laws such as the owning of concubines. While that way of life may no longer seem to be relevant in the modern world, the film clearly has a point to make about the role of women in modern Chinese society where education for women is still a luxury that many families cannot afford. These themes of the plight of women and peasants in modern Chinese society would be expanded on further by the director in other films like Ju Dou, To Live, Not One Less, and The Story of Qiu Ju. It's less overt here and, due to the restrictions that have led to many of Zhang's films being banned in his home country, perhaps necessarily so. Here it appears to be critical of an old and decadent lifestyle, but at the same time he is being critical of similar restrictions and attitudes that still oppress Chinese people.

Whether the film is considered to have a political dimension or not, it certainly has plenty to say about the roles of men and women, and it is here in the realm of human interaction that the film most successfully achieves its aims. With tremendous force and, at the same time, delicacy, Zhang delineates the power battles between Songlian and the Master, the schemes and counter machinations the Fourth Mistress embarks upon with the other wives and her attempts to dominate her maid Yan'er - a girl every bit as proud and headstrong as herself. The emotional charge of these events is, as I indicated earlier, perfectly complemented and enhanced by the stunning photography and set designs.

What raises Raise the Red Lantern to the level of greatness however is the performance of Gong Li. With incredible precision, she captures the entire character of Songlian in the opening minutes of the film, looking directly at the camera as she expresses her intentions to her stepmother. In her expression, tone of voice and gestures in one single shot, culminating with the rolling of tears down her face, can be read her disappointment at the direction her life has taken and her acceptance of the wishes of her stepmother. At the same time, her headstrong determination is not to be defeated, defiantly challenging her stepmother by agreeing to marry, but only on her terms. This epitomises her attitude throughout the rest of the film and dictates the course of events that are to follow. If you can, try not to be overly distracted by the subtitles and watch Gong Li's performance throughout the film. It's something quite incredible.

There is a touch of soap-operatics and melodrama here to be sure - they are never far from the surface in Zhang Yimou's films - but the director keeps those elements under control, allowing the sets, the colours, the lighting and most importantly Gong Li, to convey with restraint the more florid undercurrents of the source material.

DVD
Raise the Red Lantern is released in Hong Kong by Era. The disc is in NTSC format and is not region coded.

Video
As noted earlier, Raise the Red Lantern is a beautiful looking film, in which the use of colour, brightness and tone is all-important in conveying a lot of the mood and meaning. It consequently needs a transfer which will support it, and, thankfully, the Digitally Remastered Hong Kong release from Era goes some way towards achieving that. There is a slight flicker in brightness levels, and some minor refresh rate judder and stutter, leading to less than perfectly smooth movements and a hint of telecine wobble in the transfer. There is also a certain amount of grain in the print. These, however, are relatively minor issues considering how well the magnificent tones, lighting and colour of the film are handled over the course of the seasons in the golden sunsets, blue mornings and, of course, the blazing red lanterns. There is detail, sharpness, clarity and accuracy of tone here, reasonably good shadow detail, and depth in the blacks.

Audio
The audio track, retaining the original mix, is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0. It's generally very fine, with excellent stereo separation in the instrumentation of the Chinese music, holding reasonably clear even on the higher pitches of Meishan's opera singing pieces, with accuracy in reverb. There is a bit of underlying hiss and crackle, some sibilance and it does tend to get distorted when the loudness levels increase, but, for the larger part of the film, this is an excellent representation of the original mix.

Subtitles
English subtitles are provided and are optional with a white font. There are a few spelling errors and a few sentences that don't quite make sense, but overall it is fine.

Extras
The only extra features on this release are the Chinese Theatrical Trailer (3:24), presented anamorphically and subtitled. Even this looks superb, but - be warned - it contains a large number of spoilers. There is also a Photo Gallery of 15 fine promo stills for the film.

Overall
Looking back at Raise the Red Lantern in the light of Zhang Yimou's later work, it really does seem to be the highlight of the director's career, most successfully bringing together the political commentary of films like The Story of Qiu Ju and Not One Less, while being as visually splendid, poetic and restrained in its delicate portrayal of the complexities of human emotions and interaction as Hero. It's a film that has long been in need of a good DVD release and this Digitally Remastered Hong Kong edition goes quite a bit of the way towards that, being a vast improvement over the poor US release from Razor. It's a film that really needs a Criterion edition with a new print or a full restoration, but in the absence of any likelihood of that, this Era Hong Kong edition is about as good as you could hope for.

by Noel Megahey - DVD Times