FOREVER ENTHRALLED : MEI LANFANG

Asian Movie Name : FOREVER ENTHRALLED : MEI LANFANG

Asian Movie Genre : Biography, Drama, History

Asian Movie Rating : -

Asian Movie Time : 147 min

Asian Movie Director : Kaige Chen

Asian Movie Starring : Leon Lai, Ziyi Zhang, Hong Chen, Masanobu Ando, Honglei Sun

Asian Movie Writer : Kaige Chen

Asian Movie Studio : Mongkol Cinema

Country : Hong Kong

Movie Location : China ,Hong Kong

Special detail of the Movie :

Forever Enthralled follows the life of Mei Lanfang, one of China's premiere opera performers. Known during production as Mei Lanfang, the film's English title was changed in November 2008, shortly before its release, to Forever Enthralled.The film made its international premiere by shown in competition at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival, where it received positive responses, with critics calling it a "sumptuous" film.

Asian Movie Synopsis :

The film open in the early 20th century with Mei Lanfang ,widely regarded as one of the most legendary opera performers in all of Chinese history. Though a male, Lanfang built his reputation on the basis of outstanding performances as female characters, and in fact lived out his private life buckling under the weight of repressed emotions. Kaige structurally divides the epic into segments. The film commences with a 70-minute sequence that depicts Mei's reaction to a letter from his uncle, cautioning him against the dangers of an operatic career; in the years that follow, Mei recoils from social rules that severely restrict his actions. The narrative then moves forward in time by a decade, to a point where Mei has somehow managed to bound over the said limitations and establish himself as the single most popular opera star in all of China. Conflict lingers, however - present in Mei's repeated onstage duels with the performer Swallow 13 (an apocryphal character who represents a composite of several real-life figures), whose style is the polar opposite of his own. Kaige then moves ahead in time to explore Mei's efforts to juggle a second marriage to Fu Zhifang (Hong Chen) and his relationship with his manager, Oju Rubai (Sun Honglei), whose passion for Mei's onstage craft (and, possibly, a desire for Mei himself) know no bounds. Sadly, a pitfall to Mei's familial security soon presents itself in the form of a young female admirer, Meng Xiaodong (Ziyi Zhang) with whom he lapses into a love affair.