Beauty Remains

Set in 1959 in about-to-be Communist China, Ann Hu's The Beauty Remains, from a script by Michael Eldridge and Beth Schacter, details the story of two half-sisters separated by family circumstance but reunited by the death and subsequent will of their wealthy common father. The elder, Lady Ying (Vivian Wu, late of The Pillow Book), the legitimate daughter of a tycoon, is constrained by that will to seek the return "home" of her illegitimate half-sister, Fei (Zhou Xun), the daughter of a servant, both of whom had been banished earlier but not before the two girls had forged a strong familial bond. Fei had been sent away to school, where she happily did very well, though unaware that her father was underwriting her education. Informed at school of her father's death and the will's provision that Lady Ying would receive nothing unless she got Fei to return, the latter at first demurs but later accedes, being without resources of her own to continue her college education.

The sisters tentatively resume a quasi-family status, which is soon threatened by a budding romance between Fei and Lady Ying's fiancé, Huang (Wang Zhimen), a former boxer scheming to become a gambling entrepreneur. (A nice period touch is his desire to perhaps end up with both sisters.)

Much of the narrative unfolds via a soft-spoken voice-over by Fei, occasionally accompanied by evocative flashbacks to the girls' childhood together. We note the background activity of soldiers and societal forces roiling the landscape, and there is an obvious attempt to correlate the extraordinary changes to the social order of the country. But there is so little correlation shown that it sometimes seems that the period chosen could as well have been1959 or 1969. Why not 1979?

The film, while not unsatisfying and beautifully shot and dressed, disappoints for not better realizing its full potential. With its strong and subtle performances, the beauty of its setting, the poignancy of the sisters' attempted reconciliation, the background of historic political and social upheaval, the film -- perhaps partially caused by the distancing of the voice-over revelations, suggesting more than showing; perhaps by an ending that simply stops rather than ends-- leaves us hungry for more.

                                                           Howard Buck