Letter from an Unknown Woman (2004) Yi ge mo sheng nu ren de lai xin (original title)

Director:

Jinglei Xu

Writers:

Stefan Zweig (novel)
Jinglei Xu

Release Date:

11 February 2005 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Peking, 1948. A winter night. A man returns home to find a letter awaiting him written by a woman before her death...

Plot Keywords:

New Neighbor | Foreign Language Adaptation | Illegitimate Son | Based On Novel

Awards:

4 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Jue Huang	...	The Officer / Captain Huang
Wen Jiang	...	Writer / Mr. Xu
Huang Jiao	...	Officer Huang
Yuan Lin	...	Girl
Enran Ma	...	Stepfather
Xiaoming Su	...	Mother
Zihao Su	...	Son
Feihu Sun	...	Steward
Jinglei Xu	...	Woman / Miss Jiang
Baomo Zhang	...	Landlady

Directed by
Jinglei Xu

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Jinglei Xu
Stefan Zweig		novel "Brief einer Unbekannten"

Produced by
Ping Dong	....	executive producer
Ping Dong	....	producer
Baoping Ma	....	executive producer
Jinglei Xu	....	producer
Yijun Zhao	....	producer

Original Music by
Osamu Kubota
Hai Lin

Cinematography by
Ping Bin Lee

Film Editing by
Yifan Zhang

Art Direction by
Juiping Cao

Sound Department
Chen Chen	....	sound
Andrew Neil	....	sound re-recording mixer
Sam Wang	....	foley artist (as wang lei)
Sam Wang	....	sound editor (as wang lei)

Production Companies

• Asian Union Film & Entertainment
• Asian Union Film Ltd.

Distributors

• Barton Films (2005) (Spain) (theatrical)
• Beijing Poly-bona Film Publishing Company (2005) (China) (all media)
• Divisa Home Video (2005) (Spain) (DVD)

Other Companies

• Cinerent  camera and lighting equipment provided by
• Soundfirm Beijing Co.  sound post-production

Also Known As:

"Yi ge mo sheng nu ren de lai xin" - China (original title)

Runtime:

Turkey:89 min | Spain:90 min

Country:

China

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Spain:18

Company:

Asian Union Film & Entertainment

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When the man brings the woman to his home in the "Six years later" segment (which takes place in the late 1930s), the woman brushes her hand against the spine of the second volume of the World Book Dictionary as she admires his books. The first edition of the dictionary was published in 1963.

Movie Connections:

References Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

So pretty and so deadened--a superficial reworking of an emotional classic

Letter from an Unknown Woman (2004)

I got this in the mail by mistake, but was thrilled to see a contemporary Chinese adaptation of the famous story by Stefan Zweig. The lush, fluid Max Ophuls version from 1948 would have to wait.

But hopefully not for long. This one, filmed with the common "pretty" cinematography of a lot of contemporary epics and romances, is really adequate on the surface. I say that without sarcasm, because it does gradually and slowly (too slowly) tell the story. It lingers on pretty details, it luxuriates in mood and in the passing of time, and it inserts some historical particulars that make it its own film (namely the Japanese aggression on China as WWII approaches and then unleashes). All of this goes almost nowhere emotionally, or even in a narrative sense, mostly because it is simply presented, rather than organically unfolded.

I think it might be enjoyable for its ambiance, and for a nostalgic look at an earlier China. The story is given what it needs to make sense, but is overwrought in a way the Ophuls film, by some magic, is not, even though it's the same melodrama at hand. Maybe it is partly an issue of good old acting and directing--a lack of truly penetrating acting is plain enough, but the direction avoids some of the great possibilities with even these two main leads, often watching them from afar or without words. This can work beautifully in film, of course, but it takes a different kind of poetry to pull off.

So, the appearances of a moving, great movie only.