Summer Palace (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:26
Fresh:17
Rotten:9
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Though it suffers from excessive length and inconsistent pacing, Summer Palace is held aloft by Hao Lei's riveting performance.
Theatrical Release:Jan 18, 2008 Limited
Synopsis: China, 1989 Two young lovers play out their complex, erotic, love/hate relationship against a volatile backdrop of political unrest. Beautiful Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her... [More]
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Reviews for Summer Palace
| Tomatometer | Critic | Review | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
 1/4 |
Now I don't mind movies that have the pace of a snail, but nothing freakin' happens in this movie. Nothing! Full Review |
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 3/4 |
Though made in 2006, its American release could not have been better timed. Full Review |
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B |
It can overwhelm you and puzzle and repel you, sometimes within moments. Full Review |
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It benefits from a riveting performance by newcomer Hao, but the whole is sadly unsatisfying. Full Review |
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2.5/5 |
It falls apart just when it was starting to pull itself together. Full Review |
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3.5/5 |
The saying goes "There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college." Who knew that included actually caring about something? Full Review |
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5/5 |
Search out this vivid film in a theater. Don't let the sacrifices he [Director Lou Ye] made be in vain. Full Review |
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Mopey-soapy as it sometimes gets, though, this is intelligent, passionate stuff. Full Review |
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Like a Tolstoyan epic. Full Review |
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B+ |
Set against the tumultuous year of 1989, this vividly colorful melodrama of Chinese youth's sex and politics links the initimate and personal with the broader social forces in intriguing, fascinating ways. Full Review |
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Despite its problems, Summer Palace is still a good film thanks to [its] sweep-away moments. Full Review |
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The film becomes less and less involving as it spins out its excessive 140-minute running time. Full Review |
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3/4 |
I still must recommend Summer Palace, especially for the remarkably strong performance by Hao Lei as Yu Hong, the daughter of a shopkeeper in the provinces. Full Review |
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3.5/5 |
Lou Ye's Summer Palace examines youthful idealism and its unhappy aftermath.
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3/4 |
In Yu Hong (Hao Lei), the film also has a vibrant heroine. Full Review |
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3/6 |
Truth be told, Summer Palace feels more like an artier St. Elmo’s Fire than anything else. Full Review |
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3/5 |
A torrid sexual romance between two students at Beijing University set against the backdrop of changes simmering in China in 1989. Full Review |
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Combines flashes of insight and scintillating cinematography -- grainy, fumbling, light-blinded -- with stretches of inscrutable mediocrity. Full Review |
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In truth, I’ve never seen so much lovemaking in an aboveground film, but the revelation, and great triumph, of Lou’s work is that these scenes are never pornographic -- that is, never separated from emotion. Full Review |
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2.5/5 |
Ye's back-and-forth storytelling insinuates that the lives of Yu Hong and Zhou Wei are incomplete without each other, but because their young love was never convincing in the first place, the bittersweet conclusion rings hollow. Full Review |
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