Raise The Red Lantern - a short review
In an attempt to relieve my boredom at work today somewhat, I decided to bring in a film to watch. I’ve got quite a few films I bought and then never got around to watching, so I was well overdue to watch Raise The Red Lantern, a film from director Yimou Zhang. If I remember correctly, I bought this film because it was rated by others and starred Gong Li (see below). Voted “Most beautiful woman in China” in 2006 (no mean feat in a country with over 1.2bn people), Gong Li is a hugely underrated actress in my opinion. Western audiences will probably know her best as Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha, but she has been in many other films and is well established in China.
But onto the film itself. Raise The Red Lantern is set in 1920s China and revolves around Songlian (Li) as a 19-year old girl who has recently lost her father. Dropping out of university, she decides to marry into wealth, but has an indifference to becoming a concubine. She becomes “Fourth Mistress” in the Chen household and acquires a maid who works for her, albeit secretly dreaming herself of one day becoming a mistress to the master of the house. Being close to the master means more power, and there is strong competition between the wives. Each night, the master chooses who he will spend the night with, and lanterns are lit in the chosen Mistress’s house. As the competition becomes more fierce, the story takes a number of surprising and deceptive turns.
Car parts ready to be installed
Monday was an exciting day for me, with news that a big package had arrived at my friend’s house to pick up. Inside the package was the rest of the things I needed for the next stage of upgrades to my car. So, for those of you that might have any interest, we have:
A Treadstone TRV185 intercooler (which you have seen before), rated to 720hp. I am going to get my tuning shop to fabricate me some custom piping to go from the turbo to the intercooler (60mm) and then from the intercooler up to the engine (70mm). Should help cool down my intake temperatures a lot and help me make some more power. And I know the intercooler is upside down in this photo, but that’s how it’s going to have to be positioned when it’s mounted on my car!
