"Shanghai Triad" may be the last, and is certainly the least, of the collaborations between the Chinese director Zhang Yimou and the gifted actress Gong Li. The story of a gang boss in 1930s Shanghai and his willful, troublesome mistress, it's seen through the eyes of a small boy from the country who loses his innocence in eight bloody days.
Yimou and Li's great works together, starting in 1987, were "Red Sorghum," "Ju Dou," "Raise the Red Lantern," "The Story of Qui Ju" and "To Live." These five films represent one of the great actor-director collaborations, but the couple ended their romantic involvement in February, 1995, and now plan to work apart.
This last film, which is never involving and often pointless and repetitive, is about the powerful boss (Li Baotian) of a Shanghai crime triad and his mistress, Xiao Jingbao (Gong Li), a nightclub singer who mocks and taunts him, and whose nickname is Bijou. The true nat