DVD
Flowers of Shanghai = Hai shang hua
Call Number
- DVD FOREIGN (CEN)
Edition
DVD special edition.
Languages
In Shanghainese and Cantonese, with English subtitles.
Performers
Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Michiko Hada, Michelle Reis, Carina Lau, Jack Kao, Rebecca Pan.
Publication Information
[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2021]
Physical Description
1 videodisc (113 minutes) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 booklet (43 pages : color illustrations ; 19 cm.)
Audience
Not rated.
Uniform Title
Summary
"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, whose relationship with his longtime mistress 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."--Container.
Notes
Based on The Sing-song girls of Shanghai by Han Ziyun, in a translation by Eileen Chang.
Originally released as a motion picture in 1998.
Special features: New 4K digital restoration ; new introduction by critic Tony Rayns ; Beautified realism, a new documentary by Daniel Raim and Eugene Suen on the making of the film, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Lee, producer and editor Liao Chiang-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 ; English subtitle translation by Rayns.