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Ye yan (2006)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
14 September 2006 (Hong Kong) morePlot:
A loose adaptation of Hamlet, "The Night Banquet" is set in an empire in chaos. The Emperor, the Empress, the Crown Prince, the Minister and the General all have their own enemies they would like to finish off at a night banquet. full summary | add synopsisAwards:
7 wins & 10 nominations moreUser Comments:
Wanted To Love It, But... moreCast
(Credited cast)Ziyi Zhang | ... | Empress Wan | |
You Ge | ... | Emperor Li | |
Daniel Wu | ... | Prince Wu Luan | |
Xun Zhou | ... | Qing Nu | |
Jingwu Ma | ... | Minister Yin Taichang | |
Xiaoming Huang | ... | General Yin Sun | |
Zhonghe Zhou | ... | Chamberlain | |
Zeng Qiusheng | ... | Governor Pei Hong | |
Xu Xiyan | ... | Ling | |
Liu Yanbin | ... | Messenger | |
Ma Lun | ... | Pharmacist | |
Xiang Bin | ... | Imperial Guard | |
Chunyu Zheng | ... | Imperial Guard |
Additional Details
Also Known As:
Legend of the Black Scorpion (USA) (DVD title)The Banquet (International: English title)
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Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
131 minCountry:
ChinaLanguage:
MandarinColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 moreCertification:
Singapore:NC-16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Australia:MA | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Brazil:14 | South Korea:15 | Japan:PG-12 | Finland:K-15 | UK:15 | USA:Not RatedMOVIEmeter:
2% since last week why?Fun Stuff
Trivia:
At 180 meters long and 60 meters wide, the set for the Emperor's Palace is the largest set ever built in China. moreFAQ
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I'm a big fan of Chinese movies, Ziyi Zhang and Shakespeare, so I was definitely looking forward to this movie. The story is inspired by Shakespeare's Hamlet and does an excellent job of translating the classic to an historic setting at the end of the Tang dynasty. I especially enjoyed the reinterpretation of Hamlet's mother as Prince Wu Luan's former lover (there was always something uncomfortably incestuous in Shakespeare's original). The acting is superb with kudos to both Ziyi Zhang and You Ge for creating a pair of very complex characters as Empress and Emperor. Some of the dialog is poetic in spite of not being Shakespearean. The sets were sumptuous. And Qing Nu's song at the end was beautiful!
So where did it go wrong? Except for Qing's song, the rest of the music was annoyingly obtrusive. Most of the action scenes were stylized and shot in slow motion. And many times the annoying music was playing during the slow motion action sequences, which effectively doubled the annoyance. Only the Prince's "audition" was a meaningful, well constructed action sequence. Finally, it could have been edited better with the movie reduced by about 15 minutes. There were several scenes that just didn't make sense. For example, there is a beautiful shot of Empress Wan entering the water naked, but it has no relation to what came before or after (ok, maybe that scene doesn't need context, but it just seemed out of place).
Overall, a decent movie with flashes of brilliance but having one too many flaws to rank any higher.