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Gong Li is one of the most captivating actresses in the world. She burst onto the scene in Zhang Yimou's Red Sorghum in 1987, and her relationship with Zhang produced some of the finest movies of the '90s: Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, To Live, and Shanghai Triad. In fact, it could be argued that the only actress/director pairing that rivals them is the legendary couple of Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg. Certainly, Zhang Yimou hasn't been the same since the two split up in 1995.

Gong hasn't been as productive, either. She continued to work with director Chen Kaige in films such as Temptress Moon and The Emperor and the Assassin, but neither of those were critical favorites, and since then there's been practically nothing. So it's a pleasure to see her starring in a new film that premieres this Friday at the Music Box.

Zhou Yu's Train is the story of Zhou Yu (Gong Li), a young woman who falls in love with a poet named Chen Qing. They meet at a social where he sees her in a stunning red dress dancing by herself. Inspired, he writes a poem for her but then quickly leaves. She's intrigued and tracks him down, though he lives in the rural city of Chongyang. The two quickly fall in love, and she travels by train twice a week to see him. On one of those long trips, she meets Zhang Qiang, a wealthy and handsome veterinarian who pursues her both out of love and curiosity. It's a classic love triangle, made both more interesting and less passionate because the men never meet each other.

My friend Garth scoffed that Zhou Yu's Train is like a bad parody of Wong Kar-wai (In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express). Certainly, the movie would be far better if Wong himself had directed it. Sun Zhou, the actual director, is extraordinarily fond of slow-motion shots and parallel constructions, but, unlike Wong, he doesn't seem to have any idea of how to deploy them. He just trots out a random slow-motion shot and expects us to be swept off our feet. He also uses an arbitrary frame story of a woman trying to track down Chen Qing and Zhou Yu. The fact that this woman is also played by Gong Li (though with much shorter hair) is supposed to say something about women and love, but I'm not sure what. And I don't think Sun Zhou knows, either.

He does have a strong eye for compositions, however. The Chinese scenery, both in the city and countryside, is gorgeous. Combined with the lush score by Shigeru Umebayashi, it provides a peaceful background to the more emotional narrative. The film also nicely captures the arc of a long-distance relationship--how people struggle to make it work even as the distance takes its toll. At one moment, Chen asks her, "Do you like my poetry or me the person?" She responds, "I like the poet." Later, near the end of the movie, a character remarks, "A lover is a mirror through which you can see yourself more clearly"--a truism that the film confirms.

The real reason to see Zhou Yu's Train, though, is Gong Li. As always, she is radiant, embodying pathos, beauty, and depth. Her emotional scenes, as she swings between the two men in her life, are wonderfully restrained and yet powerful. And the moments of joy are absolutely captivating. I'm certain that part of Gong's appeal is that she is a beautiful woman, but anyone who has seen her movies knows there's much more to it than this. She has that ineffable screen presence that we sometimes call charisma, though it's both more than and different from what that term usually conveys. Rather, Gong Li has the rare ability to seem completely three-dimensional in the two-dimensional world of film. She steps out into the theater and then takes the audience with her into the fantasy realm of celluloid. We, too, are swept along with her on this train ride, wondering where it will end. Hopefully not soon.

J. Robert Parks  7/31/2004