THE true-life story of painter Pan Yuliang (1899-1977) - from her youth in a Chinese brothel to her sunset years as an acclaimed artist in Paris - has the drama, romance, and sweep of history that is tailor-made for epic motion pictures. Hers was a fascinating life that deserves better than La Peintre, or at least the version being shown in Hong Kong.
Some of the most impressive names in Chinese films are associated with La Peintre, including star Gong Li, director Huang Shuxin, Zhang Yimou (listed as ''planning director''), and co-scriptwriter Liu Heng (Story of Qiuju).
But the film unfolding on Hong Kong screens is so disjointed that one can only assume that a good half-an-hour was sheared to make a longish picture more ''commercial'', i.e. to conform to the usual screening times. The results are likely to please neither mainstream movie fans nor art house patrons.
Matters are not helped by a poor Cantonese dubbing job. There are three scenes that remain in the original sync-sound, where Going Li speaks in French. Regardless of the quality of the dialogue, the vocal nuances are much more appropriate in these undubbed moments.
Even giving the film-makers so many benefits of the doubt, La Peintre has some obvious problems. Gong Li is fine in those scenes where she is 20 or 30 something. But as a 12-year-old girl? The opening takes place in 1911, with the wide-eyed and innocent Pan exposed to the harsh realities of a woman's fate in traditional Chinese society. Gong Li may be an excellent actress, but a young teenager she ain't. Similarly, in later scenes where she's an expatriate in Paris, she simply isn't convincing as a middle-aged and elderly woman.
The bulk of the story concerns Pan's relationship with a young official (Derek Yee Tung-sing), a man who redeems her from the brothel and sets her up in Shanghai as his second wife.
Enlightened for his era, he encourages Pan's pursuit of education and supports her seven-year stay in Paris, capped by her winning an international award.