I could take 150 pics of this film, make a collage and show it off as the latest auteur masterpiece; adding the film's plot summary along with it would be enough to sell it.

At first I thought this was a brave amalgamation of styles. Then, I felt this film was insecure regarding its intentions. Finally, I thought it was a tragic waste of an opportunity to make a fantastic film that would be compared with European (more specifically Scandinavian)…

Enchanting. The cultural oppresion by Mao Zedong's Chinese Cultural Revolution is seen under tints of intellectual wisdom and struggle in mountainous landscapes, a "struggle" that tries to get rid of the Western, capitalist evil ideologies vs. a predominant "Communist" mentality. Splashes of humanism are scattered throughout, from romance to humor, never falling into the sinful territory of melodrama or emotional manipulation. The whole "re-educational" governmental mentality is beautifully illustrated by the landscapes as the conservative revolutionary thought gets its principles…

WARNING. The following movie has:

1) 237 minutes in length
2) The movie title appearing after one hour of running time
3) A drag
4) Tosatsu
5) Kung-fu
6) Sex
7) Genital gore
8) Ultraviolence
9) Lesbians
10) A "Virgin Mary"
11) Erections
12) Ass-kicking female teens
13) Psychotic menopausal bitches
14) Pornographic furniture
15) A Joshuu 701-gô: Sasori (1972) tribute with a pinky film spoof character called "Miss Scorpion"
16) Love
17) Romance
18) "Exposure"
19) Lust
20) Betrayal…

Before you ask, this is not my first Refn movie. In that way, I can know that:

- He still likes to dress his crooks with light grey pants and have some of them bald, like if they were still living in Denmark.
- He still uses an awesome techno soundtrack (with some pop touches that I can forgive) to open his films and to close them. The underground nudist dive bars / seedy joints cannot be omitted, of course.…