Chen Kaige, 1998, China (8*)
This is yet another spectacular Chinese historical epic from Chien Kaige, director of The Emperor and the Assassin, with what also looks like the entire Red Army recreating the Chinese Communist revolution. Once again, we get the same scope and style of films about China, such as The Last Emperor and Zhang Yimou’s Hero, and western epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben-Hur.

This story is about two opera singers, Leslie Cheung and the terrific Gong Li, whose romance is spread over the backdrop of 20th century Chinese history: World War II, the Communist Revolution, the various subsequent cultural revolutions. The story itself may not be as compelling as those involving assassins and emperors, yet the sheer filmmaking itself is something worth seeing.