Flowers of Shanghai
Flowers of Shanghai • 1h 54m
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.
Up Next in Flowers of Shanghai
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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.
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Tony Rayns on FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI
This introduction to FLOWERS OF SHANGHAI by film scholar Tony Rayns was recorded remotely in London in 2021.
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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 ...
