Directed by:
Hsiao-Hsien HouScreenplay:
Tien-Wen ChuCinematography:
Mark LeeCast:
Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Carina Lau, Jack Kao, Michiko Hada, Michelle Reis, Josephine A. Blankstein, Annie Yi, Rebecca Pan, Yang Xie, Hui-ni Hsu (more)VOD (1)
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An intoxicating, time-bending experience bathed in the golden glow of oil lamps and wreathed in an opium haze, this gorgeous period reverie by Hou Hsiao-hsien traces the romantic intrigue, jealousies, and tensions swirling around four late-nineteenth-century Shanghai “flower houses,” where the courtesans live confined to a gilded cage, ensconced in opulent splendor but forced to work to buy back their freedom. Among the regular clients is the taciturn Master Wang (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), whose relationship with his longtime mistress (Michiko Hada) is roiled by a perceived act of betrayal. Composed in a languorous procession of entrancing long takes, Flowers of Shanghai evokes a vanished world of decadence and cruelty, an insular universe where much of the dramatic action remains tantalizingly offscreen, even as its emotional fallout registers with quiet devastation. (Criterion)
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