Release and Reception
Paradise was originally shown in mainland theaters in the fall of 1998 (nearly four years after production began), and was eventually shown in Hong Kong in December of that year (under the title Take Me Off) at the 1998 Mainland-Hong Kong-Taiwan Film Festival. Following Hong Kong, it reached foreign shores under the title of So Close to Paradise. The film received a Western premiere at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Un Certain Regard competition. It would go on to win a Tiger Award for Best Film at the 2000 International Film Festival Rotterdam. Domestically, So Close to Paradise had a much more tortuous journey to cinemas. In an interview, Wang noted that as a result of the film's unusually long gestation period, promotion of the film proved near impossible. While a few cinemas may have received the film in 1998, no commercial release of So Close to Paradise took place. Rather, So Close to Paradise had to wait another six years to be commercially released in mainland China.
Abroad, the film received generally positive reviews. A.O. Scott, of The New York Times, compared the film's noir qualities to fellow Sixth Generation director Lou Ye's Suzhou River, though he ultimately states that Paradise generally fails to engage the audience. At the same time, he showers praise on the film's technical aspects, stating that "Mr. Wang's extraordinary sense of color and composition reanimates some of its secondhand attitudes." Derek Elley of Variety, generally praising both the cast performances (as "flavorful") and the more technical aspects of the film. The Hollywood Reporter, meanwhile, is generally negative in its review, arguing that the film's simplistic noir story lacks proper "execution" leaving it "heavy-handed and lethargic."
Read more about this topic: So Close To Paradise
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