Flowers of Shanghai [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Overview

"Hou Hsiao-hsien (Goodbye South, Goodbye) directed this Taiwanese-Japanese period drama set in the British section brothels of 19th-century Shanghai. Chu Tien-wen's screenplay was adapted from Han Ziyun's 1894 novel Haishang Huia Liezhuang (Biographies of Flowers of Shanghai), translated from the original dialect to Mandarin during the '30s by Shanghai writer Eileen Chang. Around 1884, during the closing years of Imperial China, Crimson (Japanese actress Michiko Hada) worries that she's about to be dropped by civil servant Wang (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), since he's spending so much time with Jasmin (Wei Hsiao-hui). Emotions escalate when word arrives that Wang will relocate to another post in the Canton province. Shown in competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival."

Product Details

Release Date:	05/18/2021
UPC:	0715515258814
Original Release:	1998
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Language:	English
Time:	1:53:00
Sales rank:	11,916

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai	Wang Lingsheng
Michiko Hada	Crimson
Lee Yu-ming	Azhu
Michele Michelle Lee	Emerald
Fang Hsuan	Jade
Luo Tsai-erh	Hong
Carina Lau Ka-Ling	Pearl
Wei Hsiao-hui	Jasmin
Jack Kao	Luo
Vicki Zhao	Actor
Rebecca Pan	Huang
Shuan Fang	Jade
Michelle Reis	Emerald
Annie Inoh	Golden Flower
Hsu Ming	Tao
Lin Yu-han	Treasure
Simon Chang	Zhu Shuren
Lee Yu-hang	Tang
Hanno Yoshihiro	Composer

Technical Credits

Tien-Wen Chu

Chu Tien-wen

Hsiao-Hsien Hou	Director
Shozo Ichiyama	Producer
Yang Teng-Kuei	Producer
Tien-Wen Chu	Screenwriter
Chu Tien-wen	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Set in an upscale brothel in late-19th-century Shanghai, Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flowers of Shanghai traces the emotional bonds formed between courtesans and their callers. Divided into chapters named after the "flower girls" (Crimson, Jade, Pearl, Emerald), the film mainly follows two story lines: in one, Master Wang (Tony Leung), who may currently own the saddest face in the movies) takes up with Emerald to spite his long-term lover, Crimson (Michiko Hada), but ends up hurting himself worse; in the other, a young couple in a different "flower house" clash over an impetuous double suicide pact. From the introductory scene -- a lush, dimly lit, crowded dinner scene in which clients play a convoluted drinking game, replete with gossip, edged slightly with melancholy -- Hou's formal daring is palpable. Unhurried tracking shots within the confined, shadowy space amplify the characters' opium-induced drifting -- hours, days, months, or years may pass between each fade to black. Scrupulously eschewing melodramatic hysteria and exoticism, The Flowers of Shanghai wields a seductive languor and a remarkable, heartbreaking force. Small wonder that Hou has been dubbed "the world's greatest active narrative filmmaker" by the Village Voice. -- Steve Erickson