User Reviews

"Lanling" is an ancient myth. It is about a boy, Prince Lanling of the Phoenix Tribe, who is too pretty, too androgynous to lead his people. But with a mask he carves for himself from magic wood, he is able to slay his enemies. His new identity quite literally grows on him and becomes his worst enemy. "Lanling" is seemingly inaccessible, breathtakingly beautiful, directed by Sherwood Hu, who studied film and theater in China and New York.

This spectacular epic film set in China's distant past and filmed in a remote area of Yunnan Province with a cast drawn from the Bal, Yi and Naaxi minority peoples is like no other from China. Influenced by Kurosawa, Bergman and Coppola, WARRIOR LANLING seeks to restore China's sense of its own cultural origins: the "Phoenix" (shamanistic, often matriarchal) heritage which was largely stamped out by the dominant "dragon," or yellow earth, culture that later evolved into centuries of patriarchal Confucianism. Enormous battles between warring tribes, rituals from a primal myth involving a boy and a mask, chthonic rites and dances are all stunningly filmed. Though it risks ridicule at moments of mytho-poetic over- kill, WARRIOR LANLING is the most visually kinetic film in Telluride and introduces a prodigiously talented new filmmaker, Sherwood Hu. －－Tom Luddy