(And another film with no Twitch review. Allow me to put that right.)
The Longest Night in Shanghai could have been a disaster. It's a formula rom-com at heart, yet another riff on Pygmalion where a glossy pan-Asian cast is headed up by two lonely beautiful people who only need one fleeting meet-cute to establish they're meant for each other. It's helmed by an arthouse director, Zhang Yibai, coming off a shaky second picture (Curiosity Kills the Cat) in which the more predictable genre elements he tried to introduce killed a great deal of the atmosphere stone dead almost before it even got started.
But it's not a disaster. It's far from a perfect film; it's too long, and its multiple plot threads vary wildly in quality, but the sumptuous production values, stellar cast and gorgeous soundtrack paper over the (very) rough spots to leave the viewer with one of the quietest,...
The Longest Night in Shanghai could have been a disaster. It's a formula rom-com at heart, yet another riff on Pygmalion where a glossy pan-Asian cast is headed up by two lonely beautiful people who only need one fleeting meet-cute to establish they're meant for each other. It's helmed by an arthouse director, Zhang Yibai, coming off a shaky second picture (Curiosity Kills the Cat) in which the more predictable genre elements he tried to introduce killed a great deal of the atmosphere stone dead almost before it even got started.
But it's not a disaster. It's far from a perfect film; it's too long, and its multiple plot threads vary wildly in quality, but the sumptuous production values, stellar cast and gorgeous soundtrack paper over the (very) rough spots to leave the viewer with one of the quietest,...
- 11/25/2009
- Screen Anarchy
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