Flowers of Shanghai

Flowers of Shanghai

Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien • 1998 • Taiwan
Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Michiko Hada, Annie Shizuka Inoh

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 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.

Flowers of Shanghai
  • Flowers of Shanghai

    Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien • 1998 • Taiwan
    Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Michiko Hada, Annie Shizuka Inoh

    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, ...

Extras

  • Hou Hsiao-hsien on FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI

    The following program is composed of segments from an interview with director Hou Hsiao-hsien recorded in 2015 in Los Angeles for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Visual History Program Collection, administered by the Academy Oral History Projects department.

  • Tony Rayns on FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI

    This introduction to FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI by film scholar Tony Rayns was recorded remotely in London in 2021.

  • The Making of FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI

    This documentary by Daniel Raim and Eugene Suen on the making of FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI features behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with director of photography Mark Lee Ping-bing, producer and editor Liao Ching-sung, production designer Huang Wen-ying, and sound recordist Tu Duu-chih. It was ...