《放逐》北美熱賣 
2006年09月14日[onGI*
來源：金羊網-新快報 


    在多倫多影展進行展映的杜琪峰電影《放逐》大熱爐灶，北美木蘭影業於近日買下了該片的英文版權。木蘭影業總裁伊蒙·保爾表示，《放逐》將於明年在美國上映。 

    近年來，杜琪峰日益成為各大國外影展的常客，其電影作品也走俏於國外市場。此次《放逐》剛在威尼斯電影節競賽單元亮相，就馬上飛赴多倫多參加影展。有別於柏林、戛納和威尼斯三大歐洲電影節，多倫多電影節並不以評獎為主，而是以電影展映數量多而著稱。其背靠好萊塢這巨星工廠的天生優勢，也讓不少導演帶著作品在這裏亮相，並尋求進入北美市場的機會。 

    木蘭影業總裁伊蒙·保爾表示，《放逐》突破性的拍攝方式讓人對香港黑幫片有了新的理解，而他們也對《放逐》的北美票房充滿信心。“很多人認為香港黑幫片的巔峰在90年代，但他們如果看了《放逐》，就會知道已經有多么新鮮的改變出現在了這部電影裏。” bq\c
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          同時，在多倫多影展上找“東家”的還有馮小剛的《夜宴》。儘管在亞洲的版權銷售不錯，但馮小剛導演的“古裝莎劇”《夜宴》卻一直未在北美找到東家。華誼兄弟影業昨日透露，《夜宴》已正式入圍第31屆多倫多電影節競賽單元，期待憑這次獲獎促動北美版權的銷售。o$k
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    多倫多電影節在國際電影界被稱為“奧斯卡競賽揭幕大典”，堪稱全球範圍內對小金人去向最具影響力的電影節。馮小剛的《夜宴》出現在競賽單元的名單內，無疑是本屆多倫多電影節帶給我國影迷的最大驚喜。已在威尼斯影展大獲好評的《夜宴》，能否於多倫多再放異彩，則成為業內外人士集體觀望的最大懸念。（記者　郭爽）W

外國影評家們給《夜宴》很低的評價. 

給《夜宴》惡評如潮.zwy
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美國娛樂老大哥 Variety,  給《夜宴》很低的評價.  把電影描述為 "tough sell".4^
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Posted: Sun., Sep. 3, 2006, 4:29pm PTB7#_\z
 
The BanquetflP?
Ye Yan 
(China-Hong Kong) 
 
By Derek Elley%P7
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Though the Bard isn't listed in the credits, shades of "Hamlet" -- and even more, of "Macbeth" -- hang heavy over "The Banquet," a dark costumer of Chinese courtly intrigue in which the production design too often overpowers the protags. A big career swerve for Mainland helmer Feng Xiaogang ("A World Without Thieves"), after a decade of ironic comedy hits, this visually opulent but stately and stygian drama looks to be a       tough sell beyond specialist venues, even in Asia and with Ziyi Zhang's name attached. Trimming of the two-hour-plus running time could help marginally.Qp3Y<
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Auds not up to the mark on their Shakespeare needn't worry, as script only uses the barest framework of "Hamlet," and even diminishes the title role. In making the Gertrude character into a leading player alongside King Claudius, and a venomous one at that, it's also equally infused with the spirit of "Macbeth."?
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As well as for Feng, picture is a sizable gamble for Beijing production house Huayi Brothers and the Mainland industry in general. Latter has become increasingly dependant on big budget spectacles, and another opulent costume drama, Zhang Yimou's "Curse of the Golden Flower," is due soon. "Banquet's" tab is reportedly around 150 million yuan ($18 million), big by Chinese standards though less than half of "Flower's" reported figure.J
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Crew includes several talents from international hits, including action director Yuen Wo-ping ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), p.d. Tim Yip (ditto) and composer Tan Dun (ditto, plus "Hero"). Yip's massive, vaulted sets and funereal colors -- deep blacks, plus shades of reds and golds -- are impressive in the short term, as is Tan's powerful, barbaric music; but over the long span of 129 minutes, there's not enough relief or variety. Yuen's occasional, brief action scenes lack originality.)ACRo
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First and foremost, "The Banquet" is a tragedy, not an actioner. Setting is the Period of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (A.D. 907-60), a time of royal instability in the north and warring states in the south.:_&)I
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In an unnamed kingdom, there lives Li (Feng regular Ge You, in the Claudius role), who's murdered his brother and become emperor. Li long lusted after his brother's young wife, Wan (Zhang, as Gertrude), whose sexual needs were barely catered for during her marriage; but she only has eyes for her stepbrother, Wu Luan (Daniel Wu, a kind of Hamlet).Nl
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Li sends soldiers south to kill Wu Luan, who was banished there by the original emperor. In a memorable set piece -- set in a multi-tiered bamboo theater in a forest -- that mixes action and theatrical mime (with players wearing masks), Wu Luan fights off his assassins and heads north to seek revenge on Li. V8y
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Opening reels stress the sensuality of Wan and brutality of Li as both engage in a slow power waltz. Wan finally agrees to marry Li and become empress, but at the coronation party Wu Luan and his troupe mime a drama in which a king is murdered by poison in the ear.fx!(]l
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Enraged, Li banishes Wu Luan, much to the distress of Qing Nu (Zhou Xun) who loves him and the jealousy of Wan.ShH'4
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When Li decides to throw a banquet for his ministers, Wu Luan returns just when Wan is also planning to murder Li. Qing Nu's father also has his own plans.w9,*dM
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Final half-hour, set during the banquet, is certainly gripping, as the pieces come together and slaughter of Jacobean proportions ensues. bTill then, however, pic only comes alive spasmodically, not helped by the principals' slow,       pregnant delivery of their lines,         lack of acting chemistry (normally a strength of Feng's pics),     and the unremittingly gloomy look. Even when the action goes outside, Feng and lenser Zhang Li still maintain the heavy color chiaroscuro.]
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Zhou, in a relatively small role, grows in her character as the film progresses, though her more everyday speaking voice is at odds with the elevated tone adopted by other principals. Ge is fine as the manipulative Li, and Hong Kong thesp Wu adequate in the slimly drawn part of Wu Luan.(1 {M 
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     Main problem is Zhang, who carries herself with all the bearing of a power-hungry, lovelorn empress but       doesn't project the necessary charisma of an evil queen.       Role requires a more experienced, older actress to fill the screen, even though her perf is OK on a purely technical level.aQ1n4
 
Camera (Technicolor prints, widescreen), Zhang Li; editor, Liu Miaomiao; music, Tan Dun; piano, Lang Lang; vocals, Teng Geer, Zhou Xun, Zhang Liangying; production-costume designer, Tim Yip; sound (Dolby Digital), Wang Danrong; action choreography, Yuen's Stunt Team; visual effects supervisor, Phil Jones; visual effects producer, Jiang Yanming. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (non-competing), Sept. 2, 2006. (Also in Toronto Film Festival -- Gala Presentations.) Running time: 129 MIN.H
 

Announced as China's opulent version of Shakespeare's Hamlet and originally expected to surface at Cannes, Feng Xiaogang's The Banquet finally emerges three months later as an out of competition screening at Venice. Though the plot is definitely indebted to the Bard – and to Macbeth as well as Hamlet - the film’s look and feel is much closer to a tentative Hollywood blockbuster. 

Staunch in its belief that bigger is better, The Banquet piles up enough condiments for a dozen meals but never really tries to cook them into one satisfactory repast. Zhang Ziyi may be the top star in China's cinematic firmament and Yuen Wo-Ping has choreographed superlative martial arts extravanganzas on both sides of the Pacific: Tan Dun's brand of lush Westernised film music has done solid service in earlier Oriental tales, while Feng himself is one of the most successfully commercial directors in mainland China. *7#M3:
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But the $15m The Banquet is a case of the sum being very much less than its very tasty parts:     a convoluted tale of love and treachery, desire and death, set in the 10th-century Beijing court.     As such it plays out lamely, crossing a second-rate House Of Flying Daggers with the artificiality of something like Kingdom Of Heaven. \pGw
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A purely commercial concoction which, one suspects, looked much better in production then it does on screen, it is way too long for its own good, and may prove quick-lived at box offices after initial attention.     Opening in China on Sept 15, as well as other parts of Asia on the same month, it enjoyed good market buzz at Cannes and has sold to, among others, StudioCanal (France), Momentum Pictures (the UK and Spain), Eco Filmes (Portugal), Source Investment (Benelux, Scandinavia) and Korean Screen ( South Korea). 

The tale sounds familiar. Empress Wan (Zhang) is secretly in love with the Emperor's son, Prince Wu Luan (Daniel Wu). A recluse, he is four years older then her and lives far away from the royal palace, his life dedicated to the study of music and dance. 

When the Emperor is murdered by his ambitious brother, Li (Ge You), who covets the wife and the throne, the Empress chooses to accept the usurper’s offer and become his spouse, not only to preserve her title but also to save the life of her beloved prince. Little does she know that Li has already sent killers to do away with his dreamy nephew. 

But while Wu Luan is a poet and musician, he also knows more than a little about the art of survival and soon comes to the palace, intent on revenge for his father’s demise. 

It is at this point that the plot thickens, for Qing (Zhou Yun), the daughter of a manipulative minister, is desperately in love with the prince and willing to sacrifice her life for him. Meanwhile Yin (Huang Xiaoming, her brother and one of the bravest warriors in the Empire, is dedicated body and soul to his little sister. 

All these characters, and several thousand more soldiers, bodyguards and courtiers, eventually gather in the vast festive halls of the Imperial Palace, to celebrate the crowning of the Empress and the grand finale of the piece. 

There isn't much point going into the further intricacies of the story. Anyone who has read or seen even the sketchiest outline of Hamlet will be familiar them, as they push The Banquet towards its climactic unraveling. But since the star of the show here is the Empress, and not the tenebrous Prince, there is no reason why Wan, first introduced as a much younger and sexier version of Gertrude, should not acquire along the way some of the traits associated with Lady Macbeth. 

Such changes could still have resulted in one of those satisfying, colourful larger-than-life epics, boasting staggering costumes and gigantic sets. Thousands of stand-ins could have been supported by an army of technical specialists, ready to catapult them through the air, twist them on a penny or cut them into little pieces, with tons of red paint splurging over white silks or fresh snow for better effect. 

And indeed, no effort is spared, with almost every frame in the film a gloriously decorative masterpiece. Production design and camera work are no less than superlative and fitting for this type of production. 

But where The Banquet finds itself ill-served is when it comes to the plotting      , which is stodgily told and clumsily directed      , inter-cut with expertly performed but by now predictable masses of martial arts choreography. That it is mostly shot in dark, burnished hues, particularly during the second half, doesn't help much either.       

The music, ever present throughout, drowns out everything in massive sweeping chords      , leading to a final theme song whose scale would make even Celine Dion feel envious. 

The cast, yoked to a complex plot which needs all the assistance it can get to make sense    , contribute as best they can with decorous stances.     

http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/va/20060907/115769244000.html 

Chinese "Banquet" low on nourishment 
Thu Sep 7, 2006 10:13 PM ET 

The Banquet 

By Kirk Honeycutt 

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) -      What if someone threw a fabulous banquet and forgot the food?       The mesmerizing but often empty martial arts epic "The Banquet" -- from China's most commercial director, Feng Xiaogang -- leaves you feeling that way. 2M0(
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The cast includes top actors from the Chinese and Hong Kong film industries, headed by Ziyi Zhang. Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip weighs in with astonishing period costumes and art direction, making each sequence a strikingly beautiful painting. Renowned composer Tan Dun offers such a lush, complex score that you could close your eyes and listen joyously to this movie. Best of all, the world's best action choreographer, Yuen Wo-Ping, might have topped himself with fights that are more balletic than brutal. 

But "Banquet" fritters away this opportunity with a cliched, long-winded, logic-busting, overacted film that at times seems like a parody of the martial arts genre. The film certainly will enjoy a high-profile ride on the festival circuit and win playdates the world over because of its embarrassment of production riches. Yet story and characters are virtually inert.     de>
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You can't fault the source material. The writers lift everything except the title from "Hamlet." Motives and goals in some cases have been altered, but in general outline the film follows Shakespeare's play closely. 

The backdrop is the ancient Chinese kingdom of 907, where treachery and palace revolts rule a cruel land so that dynasties seemingly last no more than a fortnight. The latest turmoil arises with the sudden death of the emperor. Suspicion falls on his ambitious brother Li (Ge You), who seizes the throne and takes his brother's young, beautiful wife, Empress Wan (Ziyi), as his wife. All he has to do now is eliminate his brother's son, Prince Wuluan (Daniel Wu), a melancholy lad who has a sexual thing for his stepmother so he has exiled himself from court in a dance and music colony in the wilderness. 

When the new emperor's assassins reach the colony, the movie kicks into gear with its first and actually best fight sequence: Masked actor-dancers elude the swords of the assassins with acrobatic moves rather than weapons, and fighters magically appear from all quarters. Feng does like more blood than most Chinese directors, leaning more toward Quentin Tarantino than Zhang Yimou or Ang Lee. Still, the sequence is heavily stylized with much flying, athletic stunts, slow motion and bravura midair spins. Despite the spraying blood, the sequence is closer to a Gene Kelly dance number than a traditional fight scene.       F
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The prince does escape his fate, however, and improbably turns up at the palace. Here he mopes around and picks fights with the empress and his intended, Qing Nu (Zhou Xun), who is willing to die for love. Dramatic action now shutters to a halt for extended, wheel-spinning scenes of scheming, counterscheming and suspect declarations of love. In other words, the martial arts epic turns into a soap opera. 

The acting too grows strained except for Ziyi, who comes across as the most modern of the characters. Survival is the empress' game, and Ziyi lets you see the cunning beneath the coquette. 

The dinner long promised by the film's title does finally bring blood and death but precious little action. Three deaths are by poison and another is achieved with a quick thrust of a knife. Talk about ending with a whimper rather than a bang. 

       As if to signal this is all a joke, a final death by thrown knife occurs with no perpetrator in sight. Perhaps a metaphysical murder? Or maybe the director himself did it. 

Chinese director Feng Xiaogang loses human touch in 'The Banquet'       
The Associated Press 
Published: September 14, 2006 

HONG KONG Mainland Chinese director Feng Xiaogang is known for his rich characters and down-to-earth stories in films like "Big Shot's Funeral," "Cell Phone" and most recently, "A World Without Thieves." 

He leaves his comfort zone in "The Banquet," an epic Chinese-language variation of the Shakespeare tragedy "Hamlet," and in the process loses the human touch that had made his work so accessible and moving. 

"The Banquet" continues the recent trend of lavish productions by big-name Chinese directors like Chen Kaige's "The Promise" and Zhang Yimou's martial arts films "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers." 

Like Chen's and Zhang's epics, "The Banquet" offers stylish kung fu sequences and a stunning production design inspired by ancient Chinese architecture and wardrobe. 

However,     like Chen's and Zhang's recent work, "The Banquet" can't overcome the coldness of its elegant but contrived aesthetics and atmosphere, created by the Oscar-winning duo of art director Tim Yip and composer Tan Dun, who penned a Western symphonic, strings-driven score. 

    Unlike Feng's previous films, "The Banquet" offers little to which a modern Chinese viewer can relate. y7.
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The basic premise of adapting a Shakespearean play and changing the setting to ancient China is questionable.The woefully sparse dialogue, the often whisper-quiet delivery and the theater-like pacing come across as wooden and surreal. 

     Feng's characters are ill-developed despite a stellar cast that includes Zhang Ziyi and rising star Zhou Xun.     They're stricken by intense emotion but Feng doesn't justify the pain and sorrow sufficiently.     It seems to come out of nowhere. mr3
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Feng adds a twist to the "Hamlet" story. In "Hamlet," the widowed queen, Gertrude, is Hamlet's mother. In "The Banquet," Zhang's queen character is the prince's stepmother and harbors romantic feelings for him that are shared by Zhou's character, Qing Nu, the equivalent of Ophelia. 

But the love triangle fails to carry the movie, which is ultimately bogged down by a lackluster script and gaudy look and mood. 

Zhou, however, delivers a refreshing performance as the prince's innocent, dedicated lover, and mainland Chinese actor Ge You is majestic as king.