Summer Palace

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Product Description ------------------- From the director of Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River comes Lou Ye's sprawling epic Summer Palace . Yu Hong (Lei Hao) is a rebellious young woman from a small Chinese town transed to a politically charged Beijing University in the late 1980s. The country's social turmoil is witnessed through its disaffected youth, whose newfound sexuality and activism culminate in violent suppression. Spanning nearly 20 years of modern Chinese history, Summer Palace projects the country's struggle for definition through the eyes and heart of a young woman illequipped to handle it. While drifting between the arms of two men, her love fervent for both, Yu Hong's existential crisis mirrors that of her nation. Will the chaos of society lead her to its same tragic e? .com ---- Summer Palace, a politically charged drama from director Lou Ye (Purple Butterfly, Suzhou River), telling the story of Chinese political upheaval through the eyes of protagonist Yu Hong (Lei Hao) who moves from her rural community to embrace life in Beijing. Spanning nearly 20 years, the film elucidates the mindset of the Chinese revolutionary youth during the 1980s and into the new millennium through its narration by Hong, who reads diary excerpts to set scenes. Though footage of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations spliced in among the dramatized imagery relegated Summer Palace to banned status by the Chinese government, the film feels tame compared to Western dramas. In it, Yu falls in love with Zhou Wei (Xiaodong Guo), who haunts her in later relationships once she leaves school. Strikingly romantic, Summer Palace is slow-paced but cinematically lovely, with long sequences illustrating dorm room life, dates, dinner parties, and Hong's exchanges with girlfriends like Li Ti (Ling Hu). Dark indoor settings alternate with sunlit outdoor moments, to set a moody, reflective tone. As Hong matures emotionally and sexually, we meet other lovers like Xiao Jun (Lin Cui), but passion between her and Zhou Wei never weakens. To the film's credit, the love story doesn't flatten or oversimplify the complex historical plot that explains how innocent students could be considered threats to conservative political regimes. Though meandering, Summer Palace encapsulates an important moment in Chinese history and will especially enlighten viewers to the nuances of people struggling for freedom. --Trinie Dalton