Search - Zhao Jiping, Naoki Tachikawa :: Raise The Red Lantern: Original Soundtrack Album

Good Soundtrack, but missing several musical excerpts!

Jesse Calcat | Rochester, MI USA | 01/12/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Raise The Red Lantern has got to be one of the most haunting movies ever made. This is largely, in my opinion, due to the music used. This CD is great, but it leaves out at least three selections from the movie - the first was when Meishan was singing on top of the roof, the second was when Meishan was singing in the courtyard (when Songlian revealed her knowledge of Meishan and Dr. Gao), and the third is the beautiful, sad, (Western) orchestral music that comes in at the end when Songlian is walking around aimlessly. Additionally, the main theme music, the chorus of female voices that sing the sad melody at several points in the film, sound quite different on the soundtrack - rather than just singing on a syllable of "ah," as they do in the movie, they sing "long er long er ning er long ning er long er"....which was somewhat disturbing at first. Two things that I was happy to find on this CD - there are two versions of Meishan's aria (the one played during the majiang [mah-jongg] game) - one with a chorus of women singing the main aria theme, and another with just the solo singer herself. Also, the song that the cute wedding music ensemble plays at the beginning of the movie is on the CD (track 2), which surprised me. Funny how they can incorporate that and not Meishan's beautiful arias. Overall, a good CD worth buying. By the way, does anyone know what the singer in the main aria is singing about?"