It will probably break your heart in all the wrong ways.
If our understanding of the losses these characters have suffered feels incomplete, it's hard to come away entirely unaffected as these men and women look back at their young adulthood and the whirlwind of historical change against which it played out.
As a straight, sentimental melodrama, "Youth" works well. While there are a lot of conventional tropes, the cast enacts them with such fresh, tenderhearted sincerity that they regain some power.
Feng [snakes] his camera exuberantly though scenes that highlight colorful costumes, dynamic choreography and beautiful chorines.
Youth, for all its technical prowess, is perhaps the director's most melancholy and pessimistic film about Chinese society yet.
The film serves as a paean to idealism and endurance, yet the word "heart-breaking" comes to mind scene after scene.
though the grander themes will translate for audiences across the globe, Feng's Spielbergian desire to over-sentimentalise every scene means that overall, Youth is more frustrating than affecting.
The overall tone of sorrow here comes from more than nostalgia; you're left with a sense that all that idealistic pulling together and doing without was beautiful, in a way.
Youth is as sentimental as it is accomplished...
This sweeping saga of a generation marked by political and social upheaval is told with a combination of virtuoso filmmaking and unrelenting schmaltz.
