Liu Siyi studied Media and Visual Arts at Tong Ji University and Film Production at the Vancouver Film School. Her short film “Cadence” was selected by the China Independent Film Festival. “Flaming Cloud” is her debut feature as writer and director. The project was in the Top 5 projects in the 4th CFDG China Youth Film Director Support Program. It also has won Most Promising Director, Genre Selection and Producers Jointly Promote Project prizes in the China Golden Rooster Film Project Market.
Flaming Cloud is screening at New York Asian Film Festival
In a story that seems to combine Disney fairy tales and Chinese Folklore, “Flaming Cloud” opens in a casino above the clouds, where a number of deities wager on the lives of mortals to pass the time. Although the bets seem innocent for the most part, the appearance of a newcomer, who is willing to bet on the existence of true love, and to actually wager a Flaming Cloud, a concept associated with the power and authority of divine beings, makes things a tad more interesting than usual. In order to make things even harder for the newcomer, the ones who take the bet curse baby boy Sanghui with putting to sleep everyone he kisses, with only true love being able to break the curse. Later on, as a young boy, he falls in love with a newcomer girl in his town, Ting Ting, experiencing the impact of his curse for the first time. Ostracized as a freak of nature by his fellow villagers and separated from his childhood sweetheart, he embarks on a phantasmagorical journey to find her and also cure himself of his curse. In his way, he meets Yu Yu, who wants to become a princess, and Xu Yueyia, a former superstar who has fallen out of grace. His trip, however, is just starting.
Check also this interview
Evidently, Liu Siyi turns the story of “The Sleeping Beauty” on its head, in a way that can easily be described as hilarious, not only for the role reversal, but also for the extremes the original is stretched to. Apart from this, Liu Siyi has combined a number of elements that can be found in similar fairy tales. The Gods that wager, the barber who is hiding a secret, the lost childhood love, the fallen super star, the girl who wanted to be a princess and the escape from prison are all present here, in a script that also works as a homage to all the stories including these concepts.
Through all these elements, Liu seems to play with how outdated both fairy tales and the concept of true love appear nowadays, in a way, though, that actually stresses the value of both as two of the most significant driving forces behind storytelling, and essentially scriptwriting. The plethora of characters that appear throughout the movie and the many episodes seem to be there to stress this remark as strongly as possible. In that regard, it is easy to say that the majority of them work quite good, maybe with the exception of the lengthy musical sequences, which seem to aim more at promoting superstar Yao Chen, who plays Xu Yuexia, than actually adding to the economy of the movie.
Where the film truly thrives, however, is its visual approach. The coloring, with the intense red and pastel colors, is definitely a great fit for the overall aesthetics, while Florian Zinke's cinematography is once more exquisite in the dreamy way he captures the many different settings the movie takes place in. With the help of excellent SFX, Fengyi Zhang's art direction and Xiaoxi Yu's costumes, the whole thing is definitely an extravaganza for the eyes, in an approach that definitely makes the movie more entertaining. Yifan Zhang and Yunjie Zhang's editing results in a rather fast pace, that suits the overall aesthetics here, while at 107 minutes and considering the style of the story, the movie does not overextend its welcome, at least not beyond the aforementioned musical scenes.
Yao Chen as Xu Yuexia plays both the victim of her circumstances and the femme fatale with gusto. Zhou Ye as Yu Yu plays the naive, in-love dreamer quite convincingly while Zhou Yiran as Ting showcases her resolve in rather convincing fashion. The fact that all three of them are rather beautiful also adds to the eye-candy approach here. Lastly, Charles Hu as Sangui is a great protagonist, with his portraying the different aspects of his character with nuance.
Not much more to say, if you like fairy tales, “Flaming Cloud” is definitely a film for you, in a title that I feel both children and adults will enjoy alike.
