Most critics like it, and the praise clusters in the same places. The reviews follow two Peking Opera actors through half a century of Chinese history and admire how their loyalties and betrayals track the country’s upheavals. The photography and production values draw the warmest words, with the film’s sweep and its look mentioned in almost every notice. Leslie Cheung’s performance is singled out, and several critics find the long running time earned rather than endured.
The dissent is small but sharp. Two critics hold out, and both object to the storytelling rather than the look. The Independent finds the plotting overambitious and the point of view confused, and calls the melodrama manipulative. Variety finds the film seductive to look at but emotionally uninvolving, with a lopsided script that never examines the characters’ sexual or emotional lives. Even the admirers concede the grimness; The New Yorker credits brisk direction with keeping it from sinking into pathos.