Fridae

Director Chen Kaige has had several hits and misses in his career. From the heights of Yellow Earth (1984) and Farewell My Concubine (1993) to the dreary depths of Killing Me Softly (2002) and The Promise (2005), his movies have ranged from the marvelous to the mediocre to the miserable.

His latest costume drama Forever Enthralled ranks slightly above his mediocre ones. It tells a fairly captivating, if uneven, story of one of the most important figures in Beijing opera, Mei Lanfang. Born in 1894 to a family of opera performers, Mei had found fame and fortune playing women roles.

Taught by the dedicated Qiu Rubai (Sun Honglei), Mei rose quickly in the opera world, incurring the wrath and jealousy of rival singer Shi Sanyan (Wang Xueqi). Mei would eventually eclipse his rival, achieving recognition all over Asia . A joint performance with Meng Xiaodong (Zhang Ziyi) who's made her name performing masculine roles sparkled off an affair that were disapproved by Mei's entourage, as they felt Meng was interfering in his sparkling career.

Just as he did in his previous opera drama Farewell My Concubine, Chen Kaige delivers all the requisite pomp and pageantry to make Forever Enthralled a visual treat. Unfortunately, the film suffers from structural deficiencies such as uneven pacing and lackluster editing, causing parts of the movie to dip and drag.

Leon Lai is also not the most riveting of actors, despite strong support from Wang Xueqi, Sun Honglei and even Zhang Ziyi.