Flowers of Shanghai (1998)

In the "flower houses" (upscale brothels) of Shanghai, various interweaving stories of love, loyalty, and deceit play out subtly.

Director:

Hsiao-Hsien Hou

Writers:

Eileen Chang (translation), T'ien-wen Chu

Stars:

Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, Michiko Hada, Michelle Reis

6 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Tony Chiu-Wai Leung	...	Wang (as Tony Chiu Wai Leung)
Michiko Hada	...	Crimson
Michelle Reis	...	Emerald
Carina Lau	...	Pearl
Jack Kao	...	Luo
Rebecca Pan	...	Huang
Vicky Wei	...	Jasmin
Hsuan Fang	...	Jade
Annie Shizuka Inoh	...	Golden Flower
Ming Hsu	...	Tao
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Josephine A. Blankstein	...	(as An-an Hsu)
Pauline Chan	...	(voice)
Shui Chit Cheung
Hui-ni Hsu	...	Shu-Fang's sister
Firebird Liu

Storyline

In Shanghai in the 1880s there are four elegant brothels (flower houses): each has an auntie (called madam), a courtesan in her prime, older servants, and maturing girls in training. The men gather around tables of food, playing drinking games. An opium pipe is at hand. The women live within dark-paneled walls. The atmosphere is stifling, as if Chekhov was in China. The melancholy Wang is Crimson's patron; will he leave her for the younger Jasmin? Emerald schemes to buy her freedom, aided by patron Luo. Pearl, an aging flower, schools the willful Jade, who thinks she has a marriage agreement with young master Zhu. Is she dreaming? Women fade, or connive, or despair.

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Plot Keywords:

rivalry | prostitution | male female relationship | clothing | based on novel | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

Taiwan Japan

Language:

Cantonese Shanghainese

Release Date:

17 October 1998 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Flowers of Shanghai

Company Credits

Production Co:

3H Productions, Shochiku

Technical Specs

Runtime:

130 min 127 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The film consists of 38 long shots.

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Connections

Featured in I Wish I Knew (2010)

User Reviews

beautiful film--slow pace not a problem

"Flowers of Shanhai" is a stunningly beautiful film, elegantly visualized and intriguingly scripted. It explores not only the conflicts between individuals, but also issues of gender and class, and the way in which the people in power find their lives eroding under the influence of opium, foreign currency, and the buying and selling of sexual favors and social influence. The intricate connections between older and younger businessmen, older and younger courtesans, masters, mistresses, and servants, and people of differing degrees of wealth and influence, are all examined as prostitutes try to buy their freedom, or find reasons for staying in the brothels even when someone wants to buy their freedom for them, and as both men and women fix themselves on paths to self-destruction.

Calling it too slow paced for a modern audience rather misses the point. Certainly there aren't many car chases or gunfights in it, and if one defines pace only in terms of physical action, it might be fair to call it slow. For audiences with an attention span of longer than 60 seconds and an interest in psychological action rather than physical action, it moves right along. In fact, I found myself having to rewind and view several scenes again because they developed too fast for me to follow as I took in the subtitles. I was very pleased at its lack of Hollywoodism. It's the kind of film "Age of Innocence" might have been if "Age of Innocence" had relied more on acting and less on posing in its cultivation of emotional intensity. In "Flowers of Shanhai," melodramatic action is depicted as a weakness displayed by characters, rather than being exploited as a way of sustaining the audience's interest in a character-based story in which the director has no confidence.