Product Details

• Actors: Shuan Fang, Michiko Hada, An-an Hsu, Annie Shizuka Inoh, Jack Kao
• Directors: Hsiao-hsien Hou
• Writers: Bangqing Han, Eileen Chang, T'ien-wen Chu
• Producers: Shozo Ichiyama, Teng-Kuei Yang
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Cantonese
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Fox Lorber
• VHS Release Date: August 14, 2001
• Run Time: 125 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005KA83
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #65,292 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)

  #61 in	Movies & TV > Action & Adventure > Hong Kong Action > Leung Chiu Wai, Tony
  #19 in	Video > Art House & International > Asian Cinema > Taiwan

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

With Flowers of Shanghai, Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien delivers the opulent world of late-19th-century Chinese courtesans and their suitors miraculously intact. Hou's films are perhaps the most beguiling yet restrained in all of contemporary cinema, and this is no exception. Told as a series of panel-like portraits, the camera discreetly withdraws from raucous dinner parties and drinking games into the muted, jewel-like chambers of various flower girls. The need to procure patrons and eventual husbands from among their visitors lends an increasing air of anxiety to the games of seduction and betrayal played out within. As the young Master Wang (Tony Leung) soon learns, there is scarcely room for love inside this precarious world of decorum, addiction, and greed. Hou's canny ability to place characters so convincingly within a context is the work of a master filmmaker--nothing is ever assumed or contrived. From the stunning opening dinner scene to the resigned finale, Flowers is a seamless vision. --Fionn Meade

From the Back Cover

A mesmerizing and seductive tale of sexual intrigue (nothing explicit), Flowers Of Shanghai takes place in the elegant brothels of late nineteenth-century Shangai. An insular world with its own highly ritualized codes of behavior, the film traces the destinies of the beautiful "flower girls," whose lives depended on their ability to win, and hold, the affections of their wealthy callers. Starring Hong Kong film star and recording artist, Tony Leung (In The Mood For Love, Hard Boiled), as Master Wang, Flowers of Shanghai was Hou Hsiao-hsein's first film set outside of Taiwan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Flowers of Shanghai" - a visually stunning masterpiece., June 3, 2001

By	M C J Fletcher (Croydon, Surrey, United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flowers of Shanghai (DVD)

(NB this is a review of the film itself not of the DVD) Filmed in Shanghainese and partly in Cantonese, Hou Xiao Xian's "Flowers of Shanghai" is an achingly beautiful account of the intimate and, at turns, often tragic world of a flower house, or brothel, in turn of the century Shanghai. Based on a famous nineteenth century Chinese novel (unfortunately not translated into English to my knowledge), it examines the lives of several of the flower girls and their rich clients and examines the cruelty, deceit, hypocrisy as well as the hopes and aspirations of this intimate and highly formal world. In a society where arranged marriage was the norm, the flower houses were often the only place where young men could experiment with romantic love and, contrary to what many people in the West may think, they were not places where the women were simply the victims of male sexual exploitation. Indeed, the women exert a tremendous amount of power and influence over the men and it is often difficult to know just who is exploiting whom. Many male clients were torn between the desire of genuinely finding true love and the fear that their flower girl was just using them to buy herself out, whilst the flower girls feared that they couldn't rely on their male clients - whose declarations of lasting love and support were often only ephemeral and meaningless. Some hoped to marry their rich clients without loving them, some hoped that their rich clients did love them, whilst others simply tried to quietly put away enough money to buy themselves out or support their families. At the end of the film, one's sympathies lie with both the men and the women in equal measure, as one comes to realise that they are all victims of the same stifled and repressive system, where manners and formality reigns and true feelings remain unexpressed. Hou Xiao Xian's film makes use of long static shots (his trademark) and formal fade outs and, together with the wonderfully haunting soundtrack, it is a wonderful, hypnotic, work of art. The whole film creates an illusion of a static and unchanging world, untouched by the events that are going on outside, where the male clients come to escape from the realities of their existence, to smoke opium, socialise, play drinking games and visit their flower girls. The whole film is like a dream, but it is a heart-rending dream in which the women are imprisoned and from which they, one day, wish to escape. Each frame is exquisitely beautiful and the whole effect of this film is to draw you in into this illusory world where time seems to stand still. One gets the feeling that Hou Xiao Xian's visual style and use of camerawork has matured somewhat from his earlier films, as here it is more assured and confident and he has produced a poignant and beautiful work of art. Certainly one of the best films I have seen in recent years, I would recommend this film to anyone who loves film or who simply wants to have an insight into this fascinating and complex culture.

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hothouse Flowers, October 24, 2001

By	wabrit (Derbyshire) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Flowers of Shanghai (DVD)

After the disappointing job Winstar did on "The Puppetmaster" DVD presentation (which I gather may have been due to the poor quality of the source print available to them), this comes as a very welcome relief - the presentation looks to be in the correct aspect ratio this time which is so important given the very careful framing and composition that is a trademark of this director.

There is very little in the way of extras - for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's films that would be invaluable since they do tend to benefit from some background knowledge on the part of the viewer.

As for the film, it's simply wonderful. Check out the opening scene and the amazing way the camera moves slowly and deliberately back and forth to take in different aspects of the action, picking up many nuances (who says Hou Hsiao-Hsien's films are boring to watch!) in behavior and body language. Sure you have to concentrate to get the most out of this film (just like you have to concentrate when watching e.g. Dreyer's "Gertrud") but the rewards are there for those that do.

If you have an interest in the very best of world cinema outside of the usual multiplex fare, you just have to see this film.

Now if Winstar or Criterion (or whoever) could pick up some of this director's earlier work (City Of Sadness, Summer at Grandpa's etc.) that would be great.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hookers and hookahs., August 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Flowers of Shanghai (DVD)

Well, somebody may have finally beaten Carl Dreyer's record (e.g., *Gertrud*) for fewest cuts in a feature film. I'd be surprised if there's much more than 20 cuts in Hou Hsiao-Hsien's *Flowers of Shanghai*. I know this film is Chinese, but it's almost the cinematic equivalent of a Japanese tea ceremony: infinitely perfect, and not caring if it requires an infinity to attain perfection. Paucity of edits aside, the camera is still extremely busy in the movie: if a student of film wants to learn about CAMERA MOVEMENT, this is the place to come. The camera gently, slowly encircles any given scene, allowing us plenty to look at and consider, whether it's the objects in a room or the expression on a peripheral character's face. But the movement is never so dreamy as to neglect to include what's of dramatic interest. Or put it another way: each frame exists in its own universe, charged with its own meaning. Needless to say, the Occidental viewer had better come to grips with this Oriental perspective tout suite, or he'll find himself bored to death. It's nothing less than a different language of cinematic narrative. What the hell's it about, anyway? Incredibly beautiful prostitutes ("flowers") and their wealthy clients in 1880's Shanghai. All of the scenes occur in several high-end brothels, and only certain rooms therein. Much time is taken showing us a Chinese drinking game oddly similar to our rock-paper-scissors, and even more time is expended in the filling, lighting, and smoking of opium pipes and tobacco hookahs. The plot loosely follows the amorous career of a wealthy gentleman (Tony Leung, very expressive). We learn that the courtesans he's involved with are as tetchy as any Southern belle, and hold out hope for marriage. The girls' dreams of security are what create the prime tension in the movie: who will achieve success, who will fail? In the meantime, changes are nibbling in the corners of this insulated world of languid ease and lovemaking: that roving camera can't help but pick up the modern Victorian knick-knacks that decorate the rooms. The tall European clocks in the corners are counting down an end to the static quietism in *Flowers of Shanghai*: the viewer is dimly aware that the Shanghai brothels will soon be made obsolete by an encroaching Western modernism. The movie is a daguerreotype of a way of life on the brink of extinction. It's also a masterpiece of its kind. Recommended for adventurous viewers with a certain amount of stamina, however. [The DVD by Winstar doesn't look all that good. Lots of bleeding color and even LINES across the picture. A movie as formally beautiful as this deserves considerably better treatment. Criterion, I'm talking to you.]