 Raise the Red Lantern is one of my all time favorite films. It is so visually beautiful and Zhang Yimou's use of color (as in the rest of his films) is mind blowing. The film is not only visually powerful it was politically powerful enough to get it banned in China. The depiction of gender relations in Raise the Red Lantern is perhaps one of the most moving in the modern cinema. We follow the central character (played by the wonderful Gong Li) through her life in the Master's house until her fall into madness, we see her opression and we see her strike out harshly because of it. There is a scene in RTRL, the death house scene, that I would argue is one of the most well constructed scenes of suspense and horror in all of the cinema. A brilliant film. 