In the Imperial City in the year 746, during the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Li gives a banquet in honour of his favourite concubine, Yang. The guests pay their respects to the great beauty. A magnificent feast is served. The incense burns down, but the celebration is still missing two essential elements: the delicious lychees which the concubine craves and the Emperor himself.
As Yang’s impatience grows, she drinks more and more. Where can he be? With Sun, the latest concubine! Imagining their sensuous intertwining, Yang is consumed with jealousy and behaves scandalously before the assembled dignitaries. Her frustrated desire and the pain she feels at the Emperor’s infidelity harden her heart. She is unappeasable. But it is another who will taste the unjust deserts.
Delicately flirting with eroticism, the animated film The Banquet of the Concubine, by young Chinese director Hefang Wei, recounts one of the most famous love stories of Imperial China. In this tale of bitter jealousy, nothing can sweeten the heart of an abandoned mistress, not even the luscious lychee.