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This review may contain spoilers
Okay film with an intense/sublime award deserving performance by Xin Zhi Lei
(I will warn you when the spoilers begin, so feel free to read the first part of my review.)
My journey into C-Dramas started during Covid with RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE. If you haven't seen it, stop reading this and give the show a try. It's star studded. Zhou Xun, Wallace Huo, Li Qin... and Xin Zhi Lei as the unforgettable Princess Jia.
Since that show I've desperately tried to find her as good again, and unfortunately most movies and shows just aren't smart enough for her talent. If you've seen her in other works, the odds are good she's just phoning in her performance. This actress can do great things when given the opportunity, but most C-Dramas use her as a 'sexy' snark monster and waste her talents.
The good news is that the producers of THE SUN RISES FOR US ALL understand her talent and used it. In every frame of the piece. Xin Zhi Lei need not bat her eye lashes, swing her hips, or yell to be noticed. Her nuance in this film is sublime -- and she pulls off a very complex character with the greatest of ease, without the need of her supermodel looks.
The fact she won Best Actress in some big Chinese 'Academy Awards' is utterly earned here. Xin Zhi Lei deserves to be a global actress. My dream is that the people that own Bond (Amazon) would create a series in China starring Xin Zhi Lei, the series would be shot in China (in Mandarin), and she'd play a double agent where both East and West have no idea whose side she is actually on. Trust me -- it would be a ginormous hit.
THE SUN RISES ON US ALL is a great looking film. Instead of buffing and glossing China to look like a perfume bottle, this film appears to show the real China. Crowded, a little dirty, moss growing on rooftops because of tropical weather, etc.. There's such an honesty about how things look I feared the crew were sometimes shooting on the streets without permission.
The editing is fine, the lighting is so natural, the pacing is a tad slow but consistently moves along. Male lead Zhang Song Wen is as realistic as the rest of the film. Every watch a movie and you feel like one of the actors isn't an actor at all? That he's just some normal guy they hired on the spot? I call this "the character is not aware they are an actor in a movie". Zhang Song Wen's performance is that good.
So what went wrong here? I'm going to give you the spoiler free version, draw a big line, and then begin spoiling.
Simply put: the story is a one timer. No matter how good the rest of the film is, one timer stories are not about the journey but the destination. Usually these type of films have a goal (Find the dog!) and the characters say little to each other, and then they do speak it's usually trivial dialogue.
I recently showed my nieces GROUNDHOG DAY. The first time you watch the movie, you watch to see if and how he gets out of his predicament. But the film is easy to re-watch, because almost every part of the film is interesting, funny, and/or romantic. You can show clips of such films to others and they're immediately interested.
THE SUN RISES FOR US ALL doesn't have great scenes. Instead, the entire film is one great scene, if you will, which, unfortunately, renders the rewatch value to zilch. Once you know how the story ends, your interest is over.
My biggest problem? It appears the writer/director team wrote themselves into a corner. How to resolve the dilemma between the two leads? The chose a cheap trick unworthy of a first year screenwriter and then didn't do with it what they should have. I'm the screenwriter type in my family but my wife (who I've been trained by my side for year, lol) came up with the fix in seconds. "Why didn't they do this?!?" she asked, and she was right.
SPOILERS *************************************
The story is about a former couple that seemed cursed. They were happy enough until they had a tragic car accident. They accidentally hit someone with their car, they could have maybe saved the hurt person, but instead they drove off and the person died. Our lead was responsible but her husband took the blame -- and five years of prison -- out of love and gallantry.
Our story is about how this one choice ruined them both. She was so ashamed of accidentally murdering someone that her 'getting away with it' slowly destroyed her. So much show she stopped visiting her husband in prison, because to do so was a constant reminder of her guilt and his innocence. She eventually has an affair with a married man as an escape, but this further destroys her soul because she's murdering her marriage and her boyfriend's marriage.
We join this story during her affair and when her husband is released from jail. For two hours the reunited couple doesn't know what to do with each other. There's too much pain and resentment to resume their marriage, and yet here they are stuck with each other out of guilt. (Did I mention she's pregnant with her boyfriend's child and he's dying of cancer?)
So this story paints itself into a corner and -- the screenwriter absolutely clueless on how to resolve the story -- has Xin Zhi Lei pick up a knife and suddenly stab her husband. She has decided to put him out of his misery, and in a weird way accepts that being a murderer is somehow in her nature.
Why is the ending not satisfactory? I told you my wife INSTANTLY knew why. What would have been much better is if she and her husband were being interrogated by the police, and somehow she managed to murder him in front of the cops. And I mean KILL him, not just stick a knife in him and have him still standing.
Why is this perfect? Because she not only puts him out of his misery, but she will get arrested for murder and serve her jail time the way she should have in the first place. The police would have asked, "Why did you just do that?!?" and her final line of the film would have been, "Because I'm a murderer."
This ending is so perfect I'd tell the producers to reshoot the ending. I'm not kidding. It would make this MEH movie a SOLID movie. The entire thing would have made more sense this way, justifying the over two hours of cinema.
My journey into C-Dramas started during Covid with RUYI'S ROYAL LOVE IN THE PALACE. If you haven't seen it, stop reading this and give the show a try. It's star studded. Zhou Xun, Wallace Huo, Li Qin... and Xin Zhi Lei as the unforgettable Princess Jia.
Since that show I've desperately tried to find her as good again, and unfortunately most movies and shows just aren't smart enough for her talent. If you've seen her in other works, the odds are good she's just phoning in her performance. This actress can do great things when given the opportunity, but most C-Dramas use her as a 'sexy' snark monster and waste her talents.
The good news is that the producers of THE SUN RISES FOR US ALL understand her talent and used it. In every frame of the piece. Xin Zhi Lei need not bat her eye lashes, swing her hips, or yell to be noticed. Her nuance in this film is sublime -- and she pulls off a very complex character with the greatest of ease, without the need of her supermodel looks.
The fact she won Best Actress in some big Chinese 'Academy Awards' is utterly earned here. Xin Zhi Lei deserves to be a global actress. My dream is that the people that own Bond (Amazon) would create a series in China starring Xin Zhi Lei, the series would be shot in China (in Mandarin), and she'd play a double agent where both East and West have no idea whose side she is actually on. Trust me -- it would be a ginormous hit.
THE SUN RISES ON US ALL is a great looking film. Instead of buffing and glossing China to look like a perfume bottle, this film appears to show the real China. Crowded, a little dirty, moss growing on rooftops because of tropical weather, etc.. There's such an honesty about how things look I feared the crew were sometimes shooting on the streets without permission.
The editing is fine, the lighting is so natural, the pacing is a tad slow but consistently moves along. Male lead Zhang Song Wen is as realistic as the rest of the film. Every watch a movie and you feel like one of the actors isn't an actor at all? That he's just some normal guy they hired on the spot? I call this "the character is not aware they are an actor in a movie". Zhang Song Wen's performance is that good.
So what went wrong here? I'm going to give you the spoiler free version, draw a big line, and then begin spoiling.
Simply put: the story is a one timer. No matter how good the rest of the film is, one timer stories are not about the journey but the destination. Usually these type of films have a goal (Find the dog!) and the characters say little to each other, and then they do speak it's usually trivial dialogue.
I recently showed my nieces GROUNDHOG DAY. The first time you watch the movie, you watch to see if and how he gets out of his predicament. But the film is easy to re-watch, because almost every part of the film is interesting, funny, and/or romantic. You can show clips of such films to others and they're immediately interested.
THE SUN RISES FOR US ALL doesn't have great scenes. Instead, the entire film is one great scene, if you will, which, unfortunately, renders the rewatch value to zilch. Once you know how the story ends, your interest is over.
My biggest problem? It appears the writer/director team wrote themselves into a corner. How to resolve the dilemma between the two leads? The chose a cheap trick unworthy of a first year screenwriter and then didn't do with it what they should have. I'm the screenwriter type in my family but my wife (who I've been trained by my side for year, lol) came up with the fix in seconds. "Why didn't they do this?!?" she asked, and she was right.
SPOILERS *************************************
The story is about a former couple that seemed cursed. They were happy enough until they had a tragic car accident. They accidentally hit someone with their car, they could have maybe saved the hurt person, but instead they drove off and the person died. Our lead was responsible but her husband took the blame -- and five years of prison -- out of love and gallantry.
Our story is about how this one choice ruined them both. She was so ashamed of accidentally murdering someone that her 'getting away with it' slowly destroyed her. So much show she stopped visiting her husband in prison, because to do so was a constant reminder of her guilt and his innocence. She eventually has an affair with a married man as an escape, but this further destroys her soul because she's murdering her marriage and her boyfriend's marriage.
We join this story during her affair and when her husband is released from jail. For two hours the reunited couple doesn't know what to do with each other. There's too much pain and resentment to resume their marriage, and yet here they are stuck with each other out of guilt. (Did I mention she's pregnant with her boyfriend's child and he's dying of cancer?)
So this story paints itself into a corner and -- the screenwriter absolutely clueless on how to resolve the story -- has Xin Zhi Lei pick up a knife and suddenly stab her husband. She has decided to put him out of his misery, and in a weird way accepts that being a murderer is somehow in her nature.
Why is the ending not satisfactory? I told you my wife INSTANTLY knew why. What would have been much better is if she and her husband were being interrogated by the police, and somehow she managed to murder him in front of the cops. And I mean KILL him, not just stick a knife in him and have him still standing.
Why is this perfect? Because she not only puts him out of his misery, but she will get arrested for murder and serve her jail time the way she should have in the first place. The police would have asked, "Why did you just do that?!?" and her final line of the film would have been, "Because I'm a murderer."
This ending is so perfect I'd tell the producers to reshoot the ending. I'm not kidding. It would make this MEH movie a SOLID movie. The entire thing would have made more sense this way, justifying the over two hours of cinema.
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