this could be an american gangster movie except that it be so beautiful . well and that and the fact that it take place in shanghai in the 1930s . gong li play xiao jingbao ( bijou ) the moll and a self center and vain and mean and slutty songstress keep by the bos ( baotian li ) of shanghai underworld . a usual with director zhang yimou every set be gorgeous and artfully plan and the story compelling and and the human psychology veracious . we see the event through the eye of shuisheng ( wang xiaoxiao ) a 14 year old boy from the country who and because he be a member of the trusted tang family and be bring to the city to be a servant to bijou . she treat him and everybody else like dirt while she play the bos for a fool . we can guess that her comeuppance will be severe . oh and but how severe . in this zhang yimou go beyond what one have see in american gangster movie and give u something from machiavelli and genghis kahn . the film be a little slow in part and gong li play her role so well that she be most disagreeablethat be and until what i might call the turn . this occur when she be force to go with the bos to the country after a rival have attempt to kill him . bijou be bore . there be nothing for her to do so she go to the house of a country widow name cuihua ( baoying jiang ) with a nine year old daughter ah jiao ( yang qianquan ) to lord it over her and to amuse herself with these country bumpkin . but the surprise be that in the process she be return to her childhood when she herself be a country bumpkin . zhang yimou play this part of the film masterfully a we slowly realize that bijou be jealous of cuihua and her poor but idyllic life . but that be something she can never admit to herself a she spy on cuihua with her lover . one almost get the sense that bijou would like to be in cuihua place with that crude country lover . at one point bijou make cuihua loan her some of her peasant clothes and then take delight in wear them . we can see that bijou be in denial about how much of a slave to the master she really be and how unsatisfying be the life of a kept woman regardless of how well keep . she realize that her life be empty . and now we see a certain generosity of spirit represent she give the boy some silver coin while she tell the bos to spare the woman and but it be too late . because you talk to her she know too much and he say . he add and you see and it be your fault again . this film sit well with the current communist government of china despite or perhaps partly because the bos with his small round eyeglasses look a little like a chinese trotsky . but more importantly zhang yimou depiction of the criminal decadence of china in the 30 before the rise of communism be exactly what maoists like to see . communism free the chinese from all that and be perhaps the idea . this be not the only film of zhang yimou to play to communist sensibility . his raise the red lantern ( 1991 ) also show in a different way the moral corruption of what might be call the ancient regime . but zhang yimou can be forgive for play to the power that be because he do it with subtle irony and for a purpose and the purpose be to give himself the celebrity and an international reputation so that he be able to make film that might in some way criticize the communist state while he maintain a position of loyalty to that state . work from within and it might be say . we see this in his to live ( huozhe ) from 1994 in which the hardship under communism be not euphemize . to be more exact it might be say that zhang yimou see the excess of mao regime but realize that mao be a stage through which china have to pass while and at any rate and who would want to go back to the time of the capitalist gangster . the airy and white top of the reed wave in the breeze . the color be straw and the cottage on the island be neat and hold out against the rain . inside cuihua cook and weave a basket . she be content . bijou and in her red dress and her red lip and wear her jewelry and her superior manner and be not . she recall the mulberry tree of her childhood and how she would climb the tree and eat the tree ripen fruit . all the rich in the world can not bring back those day and nor can she return to them . she would like to take nine year old ah jiao with her back to shanghai . ironically ah jiao in her innocence want to be like miss and which be bijou title . ironically and however and it be the bos who take the little girl back so that she can grow into the next bijou . the end of the film be as brutal a anything you might expect to see and and yet there be a kind of poetic justice in what happen . in part . zhang yimou be always about politics and even though the politics be sometimes just domestic politics and a in raise the red lantern . but he do the politics in a way that leave no doubt represent justice or what come to pass be shape by those who hold the power and whether it be the power of the state and or the power of the gangster bos and or the power of the master of the house and not by those who do not hold power . and that be the trenchant reality behind the great beauty of any zhang yimou film .