The Banquet(夜宴)
What if someone threw a fabulous banquet and forgot the food?The mesmerizing but often empty martial arts epic "The Banquet" -- from China's most commercial director,Feng Xiaogang -- leaves you feeling that way.
The cast includes top actors from the Chinese and Hong Kong film industries,headed by Ziyi Zhang.Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip weighs in with astonishing period costumes and art direction,making each sequence a strikingly beautiful painting.Renowned composer Tan Dun offers such a lush,complex score that you could close your eyes and listen joyously to this movie.Best of all,the world's best action choreographer,Yuen Wo-Ping,might have topped himself with fights that are more balletic than brutal.
But "Banquet" fritters away this opportunity with a cliched,long-winded,logic-busting,overacted film that at times seems like a parody of the martial arts genre.The film certainly will enjoy a high-profile ride on the festival circuit and win playdates the world over because of its embarrassment of production riches.Yet story and characters are virtually inert.
.
