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Review | Berlin 2023: Green Night movie review – Chinese actress Fan Bingbing makes audacious return after tax scandal in Korea-set tale of sex and violence
- Thelma & Louise meets Blue is the Warmest Colour in Green Night, set in Korea and featuring Fan Bingbing as an exploited migrant worker turned avenger
- While her performance ranks as one of the most rugged in Fan’s career, the film itself, directed by Han Shuai, suffers from a weak story and unwieldy structure
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2.5/5 stars
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Banished to the wilderness by the authorities in China for nearly five years for tax evasion, A-list Chinese actress Fan Bingbing is back in the limelight with her appearance in Green Night.
Premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival, the film features Fan as a down-and-out migrant worker who is exploited, throttled and raped before turning into a hard-as-hell avenger who beats up one of her assailants and sets fire to another.
Packed with all this and much more – including a sweaty and protracted sex scene that one would have never imagined Fan doing in her image-conscious, censorship-abiding days – Green Light looks like an audacious, feature-length statement of intent to reinvent herself as a bona fide thespian.
While her performance certainly ranks as one of the most rugged in her career, the film itself flounders at every turn, its story weak and its structure unwieldy.
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