| Language: Chinese Director: Gordon Chan Running time: 100 min Release year: 2008 |
| Cast: Donnie Yen, Vicki Zhao, Xun Zhou, Kun Chen, Betty Sun, Yuwu Qi |
Movie Review:
"Painted Skin" draws you in with it's recognizable list of performers (Vicki Zhao, Xun Zhao, Donnie Yen) and gives off an air of mystique with its movie posters and unique storyline. Loosely based on the classic Chinese short story "Strange Stories From A Chinese Studio,""Painted Skin" revolves around a female demon that feeds off of human hearts to retain its human like skin. The movie takes liberty to add several of its own plot twists, the major one being a Gothic love triangle of sorts with the demon's desire to win the heart of General Wang and take the place of his wife. "Painted Skin" is certainly not a classic (occasionally having more in common with b-films rather than the better Chinese epic period pieces), but it does ramp up the intrigue factor nicely as the story progresses. In other words, "Painted Skin" is light years better than "An Empress and the Warriors" and proudly atypical from the flood of Chinese epic period pieces we have seen this year. |
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In "Painted Skin" (set somewhere in China's first century) General Wang takes interest in a bewitching woman named Xiaowei (Xun Zhou) , while raiding one of his enemy villages. Wang believes Xiaowei to be a captive of his enemies and decides to take her back to his kingdom and have her work as one of his maids. Once Wang brings Xiaowei back to his kingdom, his wife Peirong (Vicki Zhao) feels a mixture of jealousy and apprehension with the new maid. Shortly after Xiaowei is brought back to Wang's kingdom, a rash of murders suddenly occurs, with its victims' hearts missing.
Peirong then has suspicions that perhaps the lovely new maid may be the cause of the murders, but her husband doesn't buy into her theory. In desperation, Peirong turns to one of her husband's closest allies, Yong (Donnie Yen), to investigate the sudden rash of murders and Xiaowei herself. What Yong soon discovers is that the beautiful Xiaowei is a demon that feeds off of human hearts to retain her humanlike skin.
Stylistically the film's director, Gordon Chan, seems to go out of his way to make it known "Painted Skin" isn't China's next film for the European art-houses or film festival circuit. Rather, the film is a star laden commercial endeavor that works on basic levels (romance, adventure, and touches of comedy) to please the masses. If anything, the casting of Donnie Yen tells you all you need to know about its art vs. commercial aspirations.
While the film starts off with a thud, mediocre battle scenes with Donnie Yen twirling around the identical sword from "An Empress and the Warriors," once all the introductory scenes are out of the way and the main characters dive into the meat of the story, "Painted Skin" gets infinitely better.
Vicki Zhao's performance would be the most noteworthy, simply because she steps out character (cutesy girl roles) and does a commendable job recreating all the angst found in her Peirong character. This is more impressive when you think back to her previous role in "Red Cliff" and how miscast she seemed to be in that film. Meanwhile, Xun Zhao effortlessly comes alive in the pivotal role of Xiaowei. Nice thing with her performance was the amount of humanity she was able to instill in her villainess role. Kun Chen was just as charismatic in his role as General Wang and he would have been even more appealing without the excessive makeup and airbrushed close ups. Lastly, Donnie Yen proved again he isn't Lawrence Olivier but can perform action scenes almost second-naturedly.
What "Painted Skin" did so well is to gradually crank up the drama factor as the movie progressed. At its climax, the movie pulls out a mixture of Greek tragedy and soap-opera melodrama that sounds cheesy on paper, but worked surprisingly well in the film. During these moments, I found myself genuinely touched by their actions and the amount of love they displayed felt downright inspirational. This one should appeal to a whole lot of folks. |
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{ Recommended Chinese Movies } |
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Election (Hak se wui) |
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Director: Johnny To; Cast: Simon Yam, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Louis Koo, Nick Cheung, Ka Tung Lam, Siu-Fai Cheung, Suet Lam, Tian-lin Wang |
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The longest night in Shanghai |
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Director: Yibai Zhang; Cast: Wei Zhao, Masahiro Motoki, Li Feng, Dylan Kuo, Sam Lee, Naomi Nishida, Ben Niu, Xinyi Zhang, Yibai Zhang |
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Red Cliff (Chi Bi Xia) |
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Director: John Woo ; Cast: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chen Chang, Wei Zhao, Shido Nakamura, Fengyi Zhang, Jun Hu |
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Curse of the golden flower (Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia) |
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Director: Yimou Zhang; Cast: Yun-Fat Chow, Li Gong, Jay Chou, Ye Liu, Dahong Ni, Junjie Qin |
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Exiled (Fong Juk) |
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Director: Johnny To; Cast: Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Francis Ng, Simon Yam, Nick Cheung, Richie Ren, Roy Cheung |
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Ip Man |
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Director: Wilson Yip; Cast: Donnie Yen, Lynn Hung, Simon Yam, Siu-Wong Fan, Ka Tung Lam, Yu Xing, You-Nam Wong, Chen Zhi Hui |
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The equation of love and death (Li Mi de caixiang) |
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Director: Cao Baoping; Cast: Xun Zhou, Chao Deng, Hanyu Zhang, Baoqiang Wang, Yanhui Wang |
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