Farewell My Concubine (1993) Review – Chen Kaige’s Operatic Epic of Love and History

Our Rating: ★★★★★ 9.5/10

There are films that tell a story, and there are films that contain a century. Farewell My Concubine — Chen Kaige’s 1993 masterpiece, winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes — is the second kind. It follows two Peking Opera performers, Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolou, from their brutal childhood training in 1920s Beijing through war, revolution and the Cultural Revolution, to a final, devastating reunion on stage in the 1970s. Along the way it tells the story of modern China itself, and of a love that cannot be named, a friendship that cannot survive history, and an art form that outlives the people who practise it.

Starring Leslie Cheung, Zhang Fengyi and Gong Li, the film is operatic in the fullest sense: lavish, emotional, larger than life, and utterly sincere. It is also long, melodramatic and, at times, punishing — a film that asks its audience to sit with cruelty, betrayal and loss for nearly three hours. For viewers willing to make that journey, it is one of the great films ever made, and the finest Chinese film of its generation. For viewers who want a light evening’s entertainment, it is the wrong choice entirely, and this review says so plainly.

Quick Facts: Farewell My Concubine at a Glance

The Story: Two Boys, One Opera, Fifty Years (Spoiler-Free)

The film opens in the 1970s, with two ageing performers returning to a theatre, and then sweeps back to their beginning. In 1920s Beijing, two boys — Douzi and Shitou — are sent to a Peking Opera school, a place of extraordinary cruelty: beatings, hunger, and training so harsh that it breaks children or makes them artists. Douzi, who will become Cheng Dieyi, is trained in the female dan roles; Shitou, who will become Duan Xiaolou, is trained as the male warrior king. Their signature piece is the opera “Farewell My Concubine”, in which the King bids farewell to his beloved Concubine before his defeat — a story that will become the template for their entire lives.

As adults, Dieyi and Xiaolou become the most celebrated opera stars in Beijing, but their bond is tested by everything history throws at them: the Japanese occupation, the civil war, the Communist victory, and finally the Cultural Revolution, when opera itself is condemned as feudal poison and old friends are forced to denounce each other. Between them stands Juxian, played by Gong Li, a former courtesan who marries Xiaolou and who loves him with a fierce, practical devotion that Dieyi — who loves Xiaolou in a way the film suggests but never crudely states — cannot accept.

This review will not reveal the film’s ending, except to say that it returns to the stage where it began, and that the final scene is one of the most devastating in all of cinema. The film’s structure is its genius: it uses the opera as a lens through which to view history, so that every political upheaval is felt not as a textbook chapter but as a catastrophe in the lives of people the audience has known since childhood.

Performances: Three Legends at Their Peak

Leslie Cheung as Cheng Dieyi — Leslie Cheung, the Hong Kong superstar, gives the performance of his life. Dieyi is one of cinema’s great tragic figures: a man who has lived his role as the Concubine so completely that he cannot separate art from life, who loves Xiaolou with an intensity that is romantic, artistic and spiritual at once, and who is destroyed, inch by inch, by a world that has no place for him. Cheung plays him with extraordinary beauty and fragility, never caricaturing the femininity of the role, and his performance is the film’s emotional centre. It is, by common critical consent, one of the finest screen performances of the 1990s.

Zhang Fengyi as Duan Xiaolou — Zhang has the more difficult task: Xiaolou is the less sympathetic figure, a man who is practical where Dieyi is passionate, who marries Juxian, who compromises with each new regime, and who betrays Dieyi when survival demands it. Zhang plays him without villainy and without apology: Xiaolou is a man of his time, doing what men of his time did, and the tragedy is that his ordinariness is exactly what destroys Dieyi’s extraordinariness. His scenes with Cheung — on stage and off — carry the film’s central tension.

Gong Li as Juxian — Gong Li, already one of the world’s great actresses, gives Juxian a fierce, unsentimental dignity. Juxian is not a home-wrecker but a woman fighting for her marriage and her life in a world that gives women few weapons. Her love for Xiaolou is practical, passionate and clear-eyed, and Gong plays her with a strength that makes the triangle genuinely three-sided rather than a contest between two men with a woman in the way. Her fate, like Dieyi’s, is one of the film’s great tragedies.

Direction and Technical Craft

Chen Kaige, a leading figure of China’s Fifth Generation of filmmakers, directs with an operatic grandeur that matches his subject. Gu Changwei’s cinematography is ravishing: the colours of the opera costumes, the dust of old Beijing, the red banners of the Cultural Revolution, the candlelight of the theatre — all filmed with a richness that makes the film feel like a painting in motion. The production design recreates five decades of Chinese history with extraordinary detail, from the opera school’s brutal courtyard to the grand theatres of the 1930s to the stark meeting halls of the 1970s.

The film’s use of actual Peking Opera performance is its most distinctive craft choice. The opera sequences are not interludes but the film’s emotional language: the audience watches Dieyi and Xiaolou perform “Farewell My Concubine” at different stages of their lives, and the same gestures mean different things each time — triumph, love, farewell, accusation. The editing by Pei Xiaonan manages the film’s enormous time span with confidence, though the 171-minute runtime is a real commitment, and the film’s melodramatic register — big emotions, big speeches, big tragedies — will feel excessive to viewers raised on naturalism. Chen’s film is not naturalistic; it is operatic, and it asks to be judged on those terms.

Music and Background Score

Zhao Jiping’s score, built around the music of Peking Opera itself, is integral to the film rather than decorative. The opera’s arias, drums and strings recur throughout, sometimes as performance, sometimes as memory, sometimes as a ghostly echo over scenes of political violence. The effect is to make the audience feel what Dieyi feels: that the opera is not a job but a world, and that losing it is like losing a language. The sound design — the clash of cymbals, the silence of a theatre after a denunciation, the murmur of a crowd turning into a mob — is equally considered. This is a film to watch with good sound, in a quiet room, with full attention.

What Works and What Doesn’t

What we loved:

• Leslie Cheung’s towering, heartbreaking central performance
• A fifty-year sweep of Chinese history told through two lives and one opera
• Cinematography and design of extraordinary richness and beauty
• The use of Peking Opera as emotional language, not decoration
• A final scene of devastating, unforgettable power

What could be better:

• At 171 minutes, the film demands patience and a long sitting
• The melodramatic register will feel excessive to viewers who prefer naturalism
• Some historical passages assume knowledge of Chinese history that international viewers may lack
• The US theatrical cut removed fourteen minutes, so viewers should seek the full 171-minute version

Box Office: A Small Gross for a Giant Film

Farewell My Concubine was never a commercial blockbuster, and its box-office figures reflect the limited reach of arthouse cinema in the early 1990s rather than the film’s quality. It was made for a reported US$4 million, a substantial budget for a Chinese film of its time. On earnings, sources differ, which is why our Quick Facts gives a range: the most commonly cited worldwide total is approximately US$6.1 million, while other databases list around US$7.4 million, and the film’s United States gross alone is recorded at about US$5.2 million. The differences reflect which territories and re-releases are counted, and the film’s long life on home video and in repertory cinemas is not fully captured by any single figure.

What is not in dispute is the film’s honours. At the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, it shared the Palme d’Or — the festival’s highest prize — with Jane Campion’s The Piano, a historic achievement for Chinese cinema. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, it won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, and in 2005 it was voted the favourite Chinese-language film of the century by Hong Kong film enthusiasts. Its reputation has only grown since: it is now routinely cited among the greatest films ever made, and its influence on Chinese and world cinema is immeasurable. A film does not need a large gross to be a giant, and this one proves it.

Verdict: Should You Watch It?

Yes — if you are ready for it. Farewell My Concubine is not a casual watch; it is a long, emotional, operatic epic that demands attention and rewards it beyond measure. Watch the full 171-minute version, watch it in one sitting if you can, and give yourself time afterwards to sit with it. For lovers of great cinema, of opera, of Chinese history, or of Leslie Cheung, it is essential. For viewers who want something light, it is the wrong film on the wrong night — and that is not a criticism, merely a fact about what this masterpiece is.

Our rating: 9.5/10 — An operatic masterpiece: fifty years of love, art and history, crowned by one of cinema’s great performances.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Farewell My Concubine based on a true story?
No. It is adapted from Lilian Lee’s novel of the same name, and its characters are fictional, though they are set against real historical events: the Peking Opera world, the Japanese occupation, and the Cultural Revolution.

Why are there two runtimes for Farewell My Concubine?
The full version runs 171 minutes. The US theatrical release, distributed by Miramax, was cut by about fourteen minutes to 157 minutes, including changes to the ending. Viewers should seek the full 171-minute version.

Did Farewell My Concubine win the Palme d’Or?
Yes. It shared the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival with Jane Campion’s The Piano, the highest prize at the festival.

Is Farewell My Concubine in English?
No. It is in Mandarin, with subtitles, and much of its dialogue is in the stylised language of Peking Opera performance.

Where can I watch Farewell My Concubine?
It is available on arthouse streaming services and on DVD and Blu-ray in its full version in many regions, though availability varies by country, so check your local services.