Summer Palace

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Summer Palace

2006

2h 20m

Romance

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

72%

Tomatometer

32 Reviews

60%

Popcornmeter

1,000+ Ratings

Country girl Wei leaves her village to attend university in Beijing, where she soon discovers an intense world of sexual freedom. She falls madly in love with Zhou, another student and, driven by wild passion, they play dangerous games with each other. When he is sent to a military camp and then to Germany after a violent protest, she finds a job and a new lover but cannot forget him. Once unrest begins in Berlin, Zhou decides to return to China and to Wei.

Critics Consensus

Though it suffers from excessive length and inconsistent pacing, Summer Palace is held aloft by Hao Lei's riveting performance.

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Chris Chang

Film Comment Magazine

Jun 17, 2013

The supporting cast is uniformly fine and excels at creating an emotional spectrum appropriate to the wildly variegated tonalities of Summer Palace's very realistic milieu.

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G. Allen Johnson

San Francisco Chronicle

Mar 21, 2008

3/4

Though made in 2006, its American release could not have been better timed.

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Kenneth Turan

Los Angeles Times

Feb 29, 2008

5/5

Search out this vivid film in a theater. Don't let the sacrifices he [Director Lou Ye] made be in vain.

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David Walsh

World Socialist Web Site

Feb 14, 2021

The repeated and explicit sex scenes may represent the breaking of some taboo in China, but they are pointless and dull.

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Austin Kennedy

Sin Magazine

Jul 22, 2008

1/4

Now I don't mind movies that have the pace of a snail, but nothing freakin' happens in this movie. Nothing!

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Yeqi Z

@RT09717471 Nov 13, 2025

拍摄比苏州河好很多，音乐也很棒，虽然不完全知道这么多做爱镜头要干嘛，或许是性爱和革命某种程度上有一致性？酝酿和身处其中的时候都很high，高潮之后却...... 1989年娄烨大四，那一年的北电，90年代的中国大学真的是这样的吗，一个2025年在北京读大学的人很好奇啊！

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ge h

@090819137 Jun 14, 2023

Hao Lei's performance is the most beautiful thing in this film to me.

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Feb 16, 2021

Mark一下国内平台找不到的电影虽然内容早忘了

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Aug 12, 2020

it's banned in china mainland. fxxk

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Apr 15, 2018

I would ban this movie not because of its political view (because there was none), or because of the nudity content (there were lots of bad naked scenes). I would ban it because it's such a bad movie with lots of dialogue of the main character's inside voice. The movie might be better if it's on mute. They can also delete the epilogue on what happened to the main characters. Because frankly my dear, no one gives a d***. That's 2.5 hours I'm never going to get back.

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Oct 27, 2014

Agonizingly slow, certainly weird, yet strangely artistic; great use of music and minimalist dialogue.

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Ye Lou

Director

Lei Hao

Yu Hong

Xiaodong Guo

Zhou Wei

Xueyun Bai

Wang Bo

Lin Cui

Xiao Jun

Long Duan

Tang Caoshi

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Synopsis

Country girl Wei leaves her village to attend university in Beijing, where she soon discovers an intense world of sexual freedom. She falls madly in love with Zhou, another student and, driven by wild passion, they play dangerous games with each other. When he is sent to a military camp and then to Germany after a violent protest, she finds a job and a new lover but cannot forget him. Once unrest begins in Berlin, Zhou decides to return to China and to Wei.

Director: Ye Lou
Producer: Sylvain Bursztejn, Li Fang, An Nai
Screenwriter: Ye Lou, Feng Mei, Ma Yingli, Yingli Ma
Production Co: Laurel Films Inc.
Genre: Romance, Drama
Original Language: German
Release Date (DVD): Mar 11, 2008
Box Office (Gross USA): $62.7K
Runtime: 2h 20m

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