The film is rather lovely to look, especially an old and run down town is interest and although the dialogue that seems might make sense eventually. It appears it might not me. On the Blu-ray cover it writes, 'A hypnotic study of hazy memory, lost time, and flight, Long Day's Journey into Night take you on a nocturnal, labyrinthine voyage.' Perhaps better luck than me.

This film is at once easy and difficult to understand. Luo Hongwu's (Jue Huang) reveries of lost love form the basis of the plot, but the meandering nature of the picture can leave one frustrated and impatient. The various scenarios presented seemingly have no relation to each other, though they ultimately result in bridging an arc Luo traverses to locate someone from his past, resulting in new found love in the present. Much of the picture conveys a dream like quality, particularly in those instances relating to magic spells that transport Luo and Kaizhen mystically above a village. That the characters of Wan Qiwen and Kaizhen are both portrayed by actress Wei Tang is meant to add further ambiguity to an already dense cinematic treatment, and it's no surprise that the film was met with derision during it's much hailed general release to the Chinese public. Apparently there's little difference between Chinese and Western viewers who consider art house films to be for the snobbish elite who have a way of pretending there's substance in a film devoid of any. At least the story ended with a kiss and a sparkler in the night, which is what I aspire to on any given evening.

Caution...do not watch this movie if you're already sleepy, like I was.

I'd read enough about this film to know not to try too hard to understand it and just go with the flow. But even at that, I feel like I didn't figure out how to watch it until about the half-way mark....which is when the film's opening title appears on screen, if that gives you some idea about what to expect.

Those who become frustrated with this aggressively non-linear film may be tempted to dismiss it as a bunch of random disconnected scenes that don't add up to anything. Actually, I think the movie is very carefully constructed, using visual and thematic motifs (like apples, for instance) to connect one part to another. It's as close to a visual poem as you'll find short of an outright experimental film, where recurring images and sensations replace narrative storytelling.

It's a movie that I would probably get more out of by watching multiple times, when I can focus less on trying to figure out what's happening and more on the little clues dropped here and there to guide the viewer on his merry way. But here's the thing....this movie didn't pull me in enough the first time to make me want to put the energy into watching it again. It tries for dreamy, hypnotic, and romantic, but it only succeeded in being one out of the three for me, and there was something sort of coldly formal about it. Take, for example, the oft-mentioned final hour of the film, which unspools as one crazy complicated long take (and apparently was in 3D in the theater). It's impressive for sure, but it's also a stunt. I found myself paying attention to the technical considerations that went into pulling it off rather than anything really happening on the screen. And the whole movie is kind of like that. It didn't leave me puzzling over its enigmatic mysteries. It left me wondering "hmmm....wonder how they did THAT."

Grade: B+