#1077: HOU, Hsiao-Hsien: Flowers Of Shanghai (1998)

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HOU, Hsiao-Hsien (Taiwan)
Flowers Of Shanghai (1998)
Spine #1077
Blu-ray


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.

113 minutes
Color
5.1 Surround
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2021
Director/Writers


Based on The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai by Han Ziyun.
Screenplay by Chu Tien-Wen.
Hsiao-hsien Hou was 51 when he directed Flowers of Shanghai.

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-eight page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Jean Ma and a 2009 interview with Hou conducted by scholar Michael Berry.

Commentary

None.

Introduction

By critic Tony Rayns.

Beautified Realism

A documentary by Daniel Raim and Eugene Suen on the making of the film, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with DP Mark Lee Ping-Bing, producer and editor Liao Ching-sung, production designer Hwarng Wern-ying, and sound recordist Tu Duu-chih.

Excerpts

From a 2015 interview with Hou recorded as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oral History Projects.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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