The Banquet Movie Review Essay Examples

This is a Chinese film which depicts a series of tragedies hitting a hereditary throne. It begins with a love deal gone sour and conflicts of interests. It displays serial revenge missions which eventually turn in to a frantic race: everyone dies.
Wu Luan, a crown prince is inextricably in deep love with Wan. His ambition of living for his love with Wan is however short lived because his own father, who was the emperor, plans to marry Wan. Wu Luan is very offended and betrayed by the actions of his father and he decides to flee their residence. Luan opts to attend studies of music art and dance. Miraculously soon after Wu Luan departs, his father, the emperor meets his death courtesy of Li, his blood brother. After the murder of Wu Luan’s father, Li invests his efforts in attempts to murder Wu Luan so as to succeed his father without any resistance. He sends riders to do away with him. He is however too lucky and smart to escape the death trap and goes to court where he is ironically welcomed by Wan and his new love Qing Nu. Wan is however not aware of the plans of Li to murder Wu Luan and she had sent her riders to inform Wu Luan about the murder of his father by his uncle.
- The movie depicts the final blow to the Tang dynasty and the foundation of divisions in China. The high court is now in a very tense mood after the murder of the emperor and the governor Pei Hong earns his violent death sentence together with his family for apparently insulting Empress Wan in a disguised greeting as “Empress dowager” The governor is eventually succeeded by general Yin Sun, who is sent to serve in a far office. The controversial scene continues to unfold in a ceremony organized by the emperor when the he asks Wu Luan to undertake a harmless swordplay which eventually turns out to be another attempt to murder Wu Luan. The attempt to kill Wu Luan is made by the guard who unexpectedly displays sharpened swords. Wu Luan is now saved by Wan who commands the ceremony to be stopped with immediate effect. Wu Luan later discovers that his father had been murdered by his uncle Li who had blown poison onto his ear.
- The emperor organizes a new coronation for the empress and Wu Luan, a great dancer and singer, is again required to perform swordplay again. Instead, Wu Luan stages a play symbolizing that his uncle Li was responsible for his father’s death. This act of Wu Luan is an embarrassment which infuriates the Emperor and it hardly hit him to an extent of devising a way of removing Wu Luan from the Dynasty. He opts to sell Wu Luan as a hostage to the neighboring Kitans. Yin Sun under instructions of Wan comes to the rescue of Wu Luan from the impeding hostage status. The emperor however does not discover that Wu Luan was saved by the empress, and therefore he sits back comfortable that he has a stable aristocratic monopoly in power. The emperor proceeds to call for a grand banquet an idea that the empress opposes with distinction. The emperor insists on the grand banquet by virtue of his imperial power and the empress has no option than succumb to the same.
- The empress decides to use a retaliatory tactic to poison the emperor by the same poison he had used to eliminate his brother. The plan to poison Li however hits a dead end when the cup he was supposed to drink from at an occasion is instead given to Qing Nu. Out of the misfortune, the poison serves its purpose on the wrong surface and Qing Nu comes down trembling to death in the middle of the dance. Wu Luan is just there to comfort Qing Nu at the last moments only to discover that the empress had planned the death. Wu Luan confronts the empress over the tragedy and this pushes the emperor to commit suicide by drinking the remaining poisoned wine which was also meant for him. After the death of the emperor, Wu Luan is declared the emperor by Wan. Due to the pain of losing his sister, Yin Sun decides to kill the empress in a revenge mission. He decides to use a poisoned blade to kill the empress but it is stopped by the hand of Wu Luan. In turn, the empress stabs Yin Sun in the neck occasioning his immediate death. Fatality of the poisoned blade also causes the emperor Wu Luan to die in the course of time. This leads to the proclamation of the empress as the ruler to succeed Wu Luan. Upon rising to the throne, the empress symbolically speaks of the flames of desire with a red garment in her hands. Tragedy befalls her as she celebrates her power when a flying blade terribly hurts her and she collapses in pain to her death.
- The movie ends with a lot of ambiguity because the murderer of the empress goes unnoticed by anyone.
- References
- Youtube website,
- <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOIVclmZmY8>