The Movie Club: August 7 | Farewell My Concubine
🎬 The Movie Club. The idea is simple. Every edition, we'll select a Chinese film and give the community two weeks to watch it. After that, we'll open an official discussion thread. This won't be a fixed recurring event, but rather something that will appear from time to time alongside the sub's regular activities.
The goal is to create a space for more thoughtful conversations about Chinese cinema and the stories it tells, rather than focusing on quick reactions. As we move into this second edition, we're also introducing a short guide with ideas for discussion, mainly for those joining this kind of event for the first time or who aren't used to this format but want to give it a try.
If you have more movie suggestions for the next edition or ideas for improving the activity, please leave them in the comments.
This second edition, we decided to change the time period, setting, and topic, going back to 1993 with the first Chinese film to win the Palme d'Or. This is an epic work of auteur filmmaking, also nominated for the Academy Awards.
Second Selection ----> Farewell My Concubine (霸王别姬)
1993 - Directed by Chen Kaige
Farewell my Concubine (1993) by Chen Kaige
📖 Synopsis
A breathtakingly intimate romance unfolds against a sweeping backdrop of social upheaval, spanning fifty years of twentieth-century Chinese history. This is a sumptuous saga of passion, fate, and the transcendent possibilities of art that follows aspiring actors Cheng Dieyi and Duan Xiaolouas they emerge from a childhood of brutal training to become Beijing-opera stars while the country’s changing political tides engulf them in their own personal tragedies.
📺 Where to Watch
Farewell My Concubine is currently available on Kanopy, Criterion, Prime Video, Mubi for certain regions and can also be found for free on YouTube with subtitles. Be sure to watch the full 171-minute version.
You can watch it on youtube, for free and complete (171 minutes) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tZg-yUSinY&t=1278s
📅 Discussion thread opens: August 7th
✅ How It Works
- Watch the film at your own pace during the next weeks
- On August 7th an official discussion thread will be posted in the subreddit.
- Share your impressions, analysis, questions, and interpretations with the community.
- Feel free to engage with other members' perspectives, whether you agree with them or not.
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📝New here, or have been shy to comment before? This might be for you.
This isn't about writing a formal review. This is a space for people who actually think about what they watch, and that's a lower bar than it sounds. If you finished the film and have an opinion, you already have something worth saying.
⏱️Right when you finish, before the impressions fade, jot a few quick notes:
- The scene, line, or choice that stayed with you and why you think it did
- A moment where the film lost you, or where you disagreed with a character's or the director's choice
- Something you're still turning over and don't have a full answer for yet
You're not writing for an audience here. You're capturing the reaction before your brain smooths it over into something more "acceptable" to say.
🔍When you sit down to comment, a few angles worth exploring instead of a plot summary:
- What is the film actually arguing, if anything: about its characters, its era, its society?
- Where did the craft (pacing, structure, cinematography, score) support that argument, and where did it undercut it?
- Is there a choice narrative or directorial you'd defend even if others push back on it?
- What does this film assume you already know, culturally or historically? Did that work for or against it?
- If you've seen other films from the same director, period, or genre, where does this one sit for you?
You don't need citations or a thesis statement. A sharp, half-formed observation is worth more here than a polished but safe comment. If something bothered you and you can't fully articulate why yet, say that. That's often where the best discussion starts.
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🎯 We hope this becomes an opportunity to discover films that might otherwise go unnoticed and to explore them together through discussion.
