Shadow, The Others

Yin and Yang in Zhang Yimou's Shadow

Shadow is easily Zhang Yimou's best film since House of Flying Daggers. Like that film, Shadow is a wuxia drama, the director's commercial haven since 2002's Hero. Yimou has suffused the film with feeling and ambivalence. The white and black color scheme calls attention to the film's depiction of the interplay between yin and yang. Ultimately though, it is the grey area of the characters' motivations and allegiances that is the focus of this tale of an ongoing cycle of vengeance. Shadow is that rare wuxia film where the drama is as engrossing as the spectacle. I felt that the first third of Shadow dawdled in its exposition, but that feeling might dissipate upon a second viewing; which Shadow demands. A masterwork.

Alejandro Amenabar's The Others, from 2001, is a dull horror film. An amalgam of The Turn of the Screw, The Shining and The Sixth Sense, The Others strands Nicole Kidman and Christopher Eccleston in a retread with a predictable twist. Fionnula Flanagan has a few nice turns, but the film feels embalmed rather than directed.