During his entire career, he only made two color films. The first was Princess Yang Kwei-fei, a retelling of the story of Chinese consort Yang Guifei, one of the Four Beauties of Ancient China. Her story is like a tragic version of Cinderella: originally a maid working for her beautiful and corrupt sisters, she is spotted by an agent of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty. She is gussied up and presented as a new consort for the emperor who is broken-hearted over the death of his wife. Yang manages to teach the emperor how to love again. However, their romance is overshadowed by the Anshi Rebellion, one of the largest uprisings in recorded history. As the emperor flees from the capital, she is killed by his guards who blame the rebellion on her cousin Yang Guozhong and the rest of her family. The central romance is pulled off effectively enough. Mizoguchi still had his warm humanism that enriched the emotions of his characters onscreen and the audiences' sympathy for them. However, it is never played to the correct scale. Yang and Xuanzong's romance is never depicted as the epic, earth-shattering relationship that it is usually promoted as. In addition, we never get a sense of scale of the rebellion. Not once do we feel that the two are mere playthings of fate who are doomed to a tragic end. This story should be bombastic and tragic, yet it feels quaint and morose. Perhaps the film's 90 minutes was not long enough to properly tell the epic story that Mizoguchi wanted. Whatever the case, Princess Yang Kwei-fei is a disappointing film. Not a bad one, but a film that missed its true potential.
6/10
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