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Summer Palace
Metascore
79 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
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  1. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: G. Allen Johnson
    100
    The most important mainland Chinese film this decade.
  2. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    100
    In Summer Palace Lou nonetheless succeeds in finding a cinematic language that does more than summarize the important events of a confusing decade. He distills the inner confusion -- the swirl of moods, whims and needs -- that is the lived and living essence of history.
  3. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    For director Lou Ye, who also co-wrote the script and was a student in Beijing during that crucial year, Summer Palace is the story of his particular lost generation, a story he felt so deeply about he risked his career to tell it. Search out this vivid film in a theater. Don't let the sacrifices he made be in vain.
  4. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    88
    It's a bit like a Chinese "Splendor In The Grass."
  5. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    83
    A fascinating and frustrating film in turns, created out of scorching passions and built around a fascinating performance but rambling and choppy in the telling. It can overwhelm you and puzzle and repel you, sometimes within moments.
  6. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Scott Foundas
    80
    Jolting narrative ellipses sometimes threatens to bring the whole house of cards tumbling down. What never lessens is the movie's rapturous eroticism, and the exquisite longing in each one of Yu Hong's sideways glances.
  7. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    80
    In truth, I've never seen so much lovemaking in an aboveground film, but the revelation, and great triumph, of Lou's work is that these scenes are never pornographic--that is, never separated from emotion.
  8. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    The bureaucrats in Beijing want to get rid of the sex and full-frontial nudity and scenes of cops beating protesters in Tiananmen Square. I would keep all that but cut out some of the flab in the second half of the 140-minute drama.
  9. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    70
    At the heart of the film is a powerful performance by the beautiful and most promising Hao Lei as its tempestuous, complex heroine.
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Shelly Kraicer
    70
    Lou's mobile camera captures the flushed energy of the faces and bodies of beautiful youths in love with all the verve and commitment of the early French New Wave.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Derek Elley
    60
    Fourth feature by Mainland helmer Lou Ye ("Suzhou River," "Purple Butterfly") shoots for metaphysical drama but ends up saying very little beneath all the poetic voiceovers, sexual encounters and political seasoning.
  12. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Julia Wallace
    50
    The director is at his best portraying the dingy dorms and vivid idealism of college life; his film stalls when it meanders away from these particulars toward a sweeping but empty attempt at the epic.
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