The Banquet
Director: Feng Xiaogang
Genre: Wuxia, Action/Adventure, Drama, World cinema
Year: 2006
Country: China
Language: Standard Mandarin
Starring: Ge You, Daniel Wu, Zhang Ziyi, Zhou Xun, Huang Xiaoming
The Banquet (released on DVD in the U.S. as Legend of the Black Scorpion) is a 2006 Chinese wuxia-drama film. Its original Chinese title is Yè Yàn (夜宴), which means "the night banquet". The film was directed by Feng Xiaogang and stars Zhang Ziyi. It is a loose adaption of William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet, and features themes of revenge and fate. It is set in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, in 10th-century China.
A narrator explains that Crown Prince Wu Luan (based on Hamlet) was in love with the noblewoman "Little Wan" (based on Gertrude). However, his father, the Emperor, decided to marry "Little Wan" and made her Empress Wan. Wu Luan, deeply hurt by this, fled to the South and retreated into music and dance. The Emperor was then murdered by his brother (Shakespeare's Claudius), who became Emperor Li and upon ascending the throne took Empress Wan, whom he had previously molested, as his wife and had her recrowned as Empress.
The film begins as the usurping Emperor sends riders to assassinate Crown Prince Wu Luan, who would succeed the throne before any of his uncle's progeny. The crown prince, away at a retreat for masked mime actors, survives the massacre at the
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