Reception
Described as "one of the landmark films of the 1990s" by Jonathan Crow of Allmovie, where it received 5 stars, since its release Raise the Red Lantern has been very well received. James Berardinelli named it his 7th best film of the 1990s. It has a 96% certified fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes and TV Guide gave it 5 stars. However, there was a small number of negative reviews. Hal Hinson of The Washington Post stated that "the story never amounts to much more than a rather tepid Chinese rendition of "The Women."" The film ranked #28 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
The film has also been praised for its artistic merit. Desson Howe of The Washington Post states that "In purely aesthetic terms, "Raise the Red Lantern" is breathtaking" and James Berardinelli states that "the appeal to the eye only heightens the movie's emotional power". John Hartl of Film.com describe it to be "a near-perfect movie that often recalls the visual purity and intensity of silent films."
The film has been interpreted by some critics as a criticism of contemporary China, although Zhang Yimou himself has sternly denied this. Jonathan Crow of Allmovie states that "the perpetual struggle for power that precludes any unity among the wives provides a depressingly apt metaphor for the fragmented civil society of post-Cultural Revolution China". James Berardinelli makes a similar analogy in his review where he states that "Songlian is the individual, the master is the government, and the customs of the house are the laws of the country. It's an archaic system that rewards those who play within the rules and destroys those who violate them.". Furthermore, in such a system, the innocent individual becomes the executer of new incoming victims, making one's outcome even more tragic, as it is analyzed by Gil Hizi of ThinkingChinese.
Chinese journalist and activist Dai Qing has said that the film, along with many of Zhang Yimou's earlier works, caters too much to Western taste; "this kind of film is really shot for the casual pleasures of foreigners".
The film's popularity has also been attributed to a resurgence in Chinese tourism after the government response to the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 due to its use of exotic locations.
The film was named one of the 25 movies you must see before you die.
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