The novel Farewell My Concubine has lived in the shadow of its film adaptation, which earned a number of awards from prestigious institutions such the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the New York Film Critics Circle, to name a few. In fact the movie was considered such a revolutionary piece of Chinese filmmaking that its director, Kaige Chen, is more readily associated with Farewell My Concubine than Lee, and film reviews only give casual mention of the book, if they even mention it at all. A Publishers Weekly review offers some insight as to why the novel has received less attention and praise than the film. The reviewer speculates that the film version of the novel might be more satisfying than the novel as the film has an "irresistible setting" and "smart plot" that overpowers the "wooden reactions...