I really wanted to like this fictional movie from director Lou Ye. After all, I can understanding that falling in love is indeed strange, confusing, and beyond anybody understanding, besides the lover, but after watching this movie, I can say, this movie is not watchable. It's just too bland and somewhat unpleasant. We get it, Lou Ye! Falling in love and living in Communist China is indeed misery. I don't think, a highly repetitive movie with no character development about the passionate but volatile love affairs of an unstable young woman, Yu Hong (Hao Yei) was needed. After all, dealing with real-life is depressing enough, so why the audience waste time, watching more of that negative BS in reel-life. Don't get me wrong, I was going to stand by this movie, even if I'm going to stand alone, if the character disaffection with society and her use of sex as a substitute for contentment, led somewhere. Sadly, it does not. In the end, the movie about a woman's self-reflection on why she couldn't comfort in the arms of different lovers led nowhere, and was pretty much pointless as it didn't solve any of her mental problems. It doesn't help that the tone for this film really horrible. Barely any scenes that seem lovely, even when Hong isn't crying or being overdramatic. It doesn't help the audience that the sex scenes are not made to look romantic at all, with the undifferentiated partners, barely haven't any stimulation, while going at it. For a film to be one of the first from mainland China to feature the full-frontal adult nudity of both its male and female leads; it just felt too tame to care about their relationships. While, I have to say, Hao Yei is a great actress, the material that she was given, was just below average. Plus, it was a bit odd that Lou Ye pick Hao Yei, because she turn him down, fearing the sex scenes would hurt her love relationship. It's equally as weird as the entire crew had to waited patiently for Hao to accept, for so long that the original choice for Zhou Wei, Liu Ye, had to abandon the project. Hao was very touched by Lou Ye's actions and agreed, request to but her relationship with actor Deng Chao did end as a result. Still, I have to question if this was a great choice for Hao. After all, it's not really a realistic picture of the student life, here, because, all her character was doing was having sex and moaning about it. In my opinion, I think Lou Ye, pretty much exploit Hao Yei. Why, because ask yourselves, this, when did her character, get any time to study!? It doesn't help the movie that Hong's political views are never, truly explored as well. So, when the backdrop of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, came. It seem to come, out of the blue for Hong to want to join. Though footage of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations are indeed spliced in among the dramatized imagery. Seeing, how there was no appearance of Hong talking to any of the key student leaders, or her, at the Square, protesting. It felt like a waste of time. I get that, the political movement was no more than a momentary sensation hiccup for Hong as she go on with her alienated most self-centered live, but couldn't they portray it, better than, just a few brief sequence of Hong's friends checking out the streets, while Hong moans. Don't get me wrong, Hu Lingling & Guo Xiaodong were fine as Hong's friends, Li-Ti and Zhou Wei, but it was a really sad portrayal of key event in China history. It felt a little bit shoehorn, seeing how it barely affect Hong's life like the scenes in Germany. To add insult to the misery; the movie doesn't really do a good job capturing life in China during the Cold War at all. The clothes, the schools, and the sites, just doesn't look like 1980's Beijing. Perhaps, the most jarring thing in this film, has to be, hearing western style music in bars, where all the characters go to. I really doubt that. Another thing, that hurt this film for me, is how badly shot, it was. Hua Qing is a really bad, cinematographer. It was really blurry at parts, or way too pitch black. I can barely see, what's going on. Yet, another problem, this movie has, is really bad pacing with a 140 minute running time. It takes forever to get anywhere. Overall: I get that this coming to age movie was going for a French New Wave feel to it, with Hong, narrating her life in somewhat a poetic way, but I had to say, it kinda failed. It felt tame compared to other Western dramas from Cannes Film Festival, that year. It's just not as good as certain critics think it is. While, I do understand, why the Chinese government banned this movie, due to the sex scenes and political undertones. I just don't see, why people should still see this movie. It's just painful to watch. Sadly, because of that. I just can't recommended seeing.

This film is about several Chinese people, about how they grow up and how time changes them. It is focused on one couple, the very intense passion that they feel for each other and the paths that life shows them in relation of what they feel in each step of their lives...This movie is centered in love. More exactly, it is centered in the romantic view of life, which is destined to collide with the fact of growing up, because the characters in the film just can't manage to keep their passionate feelings while they start living other things after leaving university. It is as if life and circumstances pushes them to leave behind their memories, the anchor that seems to keep the characters living and knowing that they are someone. I think it is interesting how this is managed as the film goes by, because I recognized this feeling in myself and among my friends: about how, by leaving school, you have the feeling to be adrift in the universe of life.Also, the passion that the characters feel becomes sedated by the tedium of their lives after school. I think the director tries to communicate that feeling: after university, the characters start to get bored with their lives, compared with what they lived in school. It is sad to look how the woman character struggles to keep that feeling alive, but always feeling depressed because she can't grasp that passion that just goes away. They travel, they meet other people, they get jobs, but simply it's not the same. This is also related to the student's protests in China, all the feelings and expectations they generate, and the disillusion they found when they have to confront the real world.Finally, I think what the film communicates, is that every emotion, love, feeling or whatsoever, is seized by time. This is something that the characters just don't get and the reason of why they suffer: they can't accept that they are different from the ones that were young and passionate. Even in long marriages, couples have to reinvent themselves to keep together each other, or simply they fall in the arms of custom. This last thing is what the characters refuse to do, always trying to keep their feelings alive. But that's also the reason of why they suffer, especially the woman character: they live attached to their memories and they leave part of their identity in the past. I think that a phrase that is showed in the french movie "Irreversible" could fit perfectly on this one: TIME DESTROYS EVERYTHING. But in this film, this phrase applies in a more subtle way, in something that involves people's identities.I liked the movie. It was one of those which you can't get out of your head for the rest of the day. The acting is good and the music is great. If there is something to criticize, is that the film is a little bit too long for what it express, specially at the second part of the film. I found other criticism unfounded: sex is an important part of the film, since it express passion, and it's definitely NOT a soap opera, because it doesn't have a happy ending and it has a message that you have to discover by thinking and feeling the film.I recommend this one.

First time to watch Ye Lou's movie, I think it's not a perfect film, but certainly it's a good one.He is good at depicting the love deep in the heart:the love with desire,contradiction,unfaith,loss and the future.The film can remind your past time while you were young,can make you miss your lost romantic, can make you think over the love,the youth.So, a beautiful love drama it is.I also have to mention this backdrop of the 6/4 incident happened in Beijing in 1989 in the movie,as I known, no other directors in China dared to take this backdrop in any movies up to now, so I respect Mr.Lou's courage. At last I think the best character in the drama is Li Ti played by Ling Hu .The flaw of the film is at the end when Yu Hong and Zhou Wei met, I think, the process is not very good.

This is a response for DICK STEEL comments on the movie. You should put his comment on the end of the line. It's useless!!!!The movie is a piece of art! The director,the actors,the music,the editing,everything fit smoothly in this picture.The writer- director did a phenomenal job telling the story.I felt the soul of the director in this picture.I think it is one of the best films I've seen in the last couple of years.If you have no sensibility as a person,don't try to criticize somebody who put his mind ,time and soul in telling a story,because you confuse the soft porn movies with this one.The way that the director shows sex is in the most realistic and sincere way possible. If he wouldn't use sex in telling the story, the characters might not be so well defined . If somebody doesn't have an understanding of art ,and view the movie with a preconceived perception about sex,then don't see this movie!We don't need your opinion. Go see spider man 3,and enjoy,bla,bla ,bla!!!!