Drama
Chinese (霸王别姬)
1993 · Directed by Chen Kaige · 171 min
Two boys meet in a harsh Beijing opera school in the 1920s and grow into stage partners, one playing a hero and the other his devoted consort. Across fifty years of upheaval, the line between role and life, and between friendship and love, begins to blur.
Why it matters in cinema history
A culminating work of the Fifth Generation, it carried Chinese-language cinema to the centre of the international festival circuit and remains a reference point for how film can dramatise twentieth-century China.
Watch with intention
Watch the stage and the street as two versions of the same performance, and notice where the characters are most honest.
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