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Bookmark this pageLi Lianying, the Imperial Eunuch (1991)
Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Tian admits that this chamber epic was not a 'personal' project; for a film which began shooting only a few months after the Tiananmen Square massacre, it certainly feels more like a flight into history than even an oblique response to the moment. Spanning the last five decades of the Qing Dynasty, it centres on the oddly affectionate relationship between Empress Dowager Cixi (Liu) and her chief eunuch (Jiang); the stars were a real life couple at the time. The often filmed historical facts are rehearsed efficiently enough: the folly of deflecting naval funds to the building of the Summer Palace, puppet emperor Guangxu's ill fated bid for autonomy as a reformist and so on. But the film is vindicated by its prime mover Jiang Wen's colossal performance as Li; no other actor has ever gone deeper into the implications of castration and living as a neutered animal.Author: TR
User reviews of this film
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- Susanna said...
- Posted on Aug 20 2009 11:03 I would LOVE to learn more about EUNUCHS but I cannot find anything on the internet. Where should I look? Susanna, susanna30btinternet.com
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Cast & crew
Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang
Producer: Tam Wing-chuen, Cheng Zhigu
Cast: Jiang Wen, Liu Xiaoqing, Zhu Yu, Tian Xiaojun, Xu Fan, Lin Wei full cast
Genre(s): Period/Swashbucklers
Duration: 105 mins
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