Regardless of the provenance of the difficulties, Pavilion of Women has an awkwardness that defeats whatever emotional involvement it tries to achieve. Stylistically, Pavilion of Women falls somewhere in between, but it achieves much less of an effect. I must confess that the corresponding scene from the earlier film marked the first time I ever cried at a movie, but, hey, I was about 6 years old at the time, and it was the '50s. Pavilion of Women is a co-production between Universal and Beijing Film Studios, apparently the first time a mainland company has collaborated with a major Hollywood studio. One wonders how the execs over in Universal City reacted when they saw the film's climax, in which two of the major characters are revealed to have found happiness and fulfillment as smiling members of the Chinese Communist Party.
Art sometimes makes stranger bedfellows than politics.
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