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Flowers of Shanghai Director: Hsiao-hsien Hou Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Widescreen Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 113 minutes Studio: Fox Lorber Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2002-04-16 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 25 Average rating: 3.0 "Art House Flick." This is an exquisite film that will appeal to those who are captivated by historical Chinese Culture. There's very little story line and make no mistake, this is an art house film. Not for those with a small attention span. We watched the first 5 minutes and determined that we must have a bottle of wine and take-out before venturing any further. Once those needs were taken care of, it was easy to watch the sumptuous beauty and subtle plot unfold. It truly is a beautiful film. "For the YOIDYS outthere...." If you read the review from Yoidy and if you were looking for a skin fest in this movie, you'd be giving a 1 star, too. :) This one is your basic Asian Art House movie. Even to an Asian like me, it can be boring and slow from time to time. The brothel scene and the characters depicted in the movie were very close to what was happening at that time. If you read the book "Memoirs of a Geisha", the relationships and mannerisms depicted in this movie are very similar to the Japanese counterpart. High price hookers were always prized commodities among the bored whealthies and the second-generation masters. How the ladies secure their 'supporters/admirers' and accumulate money and connections are the main subject matters in this movie. So if you were into subtle emotional and gestural exchanges, opulent period pieces, languid pacing, and art house films, you'd enjoy this one. But for the Yoidys out there, don't bother. :) "beautiful movie, lousy transfer for the dvd" i loved this movie in the theater--just really beautifully shot. But the color on the dvd is all washed out, with an overwhelming yellow tone to it that I don't remember. It's possible I'm just not remembering the original correctly, but I don't think that's the case. It might be worth asking the folks at your local video store to pop it in their player for a minute so you can see for yourself before you decide to pick it up. "I thought brothels were exciting..." Until I saw this movie. Between the insipid chinese twang music, different angles of the same character having a smoke, and a million pans around the dining table, I slumped my head down like a dead man, the only visceral reaction caused by this celluloid chang dynasty brochure. When I got this home, I couldnt wait to get it into the player, expecting languid scenes of geisha sensuality. Instead I got a vicious crotch tease! It was so painful I fast forwarded my way through. Next time you make a movie about a brothel, you deliver the goods. Show me the honeys! Don't wanna waste my money! "Believe The HHH Hype! - A Formal Masterpiece!" I can't think of a single film I've seen with less editing. I take that back; Andy Warhol's early b&w films definitely have far fewer cuts (and yes, I know, I know, Warhol didn't really direct most of them). Warhol is probably a good reference point, actually. In "Flowers of Shanghai" the camera moves back and forth somewhat within a scene, but never really forward or backward. Additionally, as in those Warhol films, there is almost literally no editing within each scene. A sequence starts, and the camera may continue its gaze uninterrupted for eight minutes or more until the scene comes to its own logical end. I read somewhere that there are a total of only 37 shots in this film, and that seems pretty believable. This style can very easily bore a viewer to death. On the other hand, it can be really mind-blowing. If nothing else, its unusual. It conveys a sense of calm and even stasis, but also belies a foreboding dread. Janet Maslin of the NY Times speaks of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's films as filmed "with a streamlined ordinariness that amounts to a kind of eloquence." "Flowers of Shanghai" is certainly a perfect example of this. At the same time, "Flowers of Shanghai" avoids the manipulation pretty much inherent to film and video - the viewer is not guided by the camera or the editing almost at all, and is therefore forced to take an unusually active role in his or her film experience. This is not to say that we are dealing with a cold, totally hands-off approach to film direction, of course. The music, sets, lighting, camera position, screenwriting, etc. all have an effect on the viewer (I'll let the word 'suture' slip). All the same, this is an extremely subtle narrative style, a minimal style even. I call it minimal because director Hou Hsiao-Hsien uses so little variation in each of these narrative devices. Take the sets for example. There are no exterior shots at all in this film. In fact, I only noted only one scene in which I could discern any daylight at all. The film is made up entirely of scenes set inside the tight and always poorly-lit chambers of "Flowerhouse" brothels of 19th Century Shanghai. Such consistency adds an almost tangible claustrophobia to the already omnipresent feeling of stasis I mentioned earlier. It also lends the film a sense of the everyday (in the sense that Paul Schrader uses the term). I found this really very brilliant and efficient film-making. Placing every scene in one or a few locations is a device not uncommon to theater, but one fairly unusual to film. The Flowerhouse becomes for the viewer a true microcosm, which affords the viewer uninterrupted focus (tunnel-vision even) while, at the same time, prodding the viewer's curiosity about what goes on outside. Watching "Flowers of Shanghai", I couldn't stop wondering just what all the men in this film do when they aren't patronizing the brothel? Where do they come by their money? Do they have families? Hobbies? It really isn't addressed, and isn't important to the film either. So long as the viewer is aware that the characters must do *something* else during the day (and Hou Hsiao-Hsien makes sure of this), it is unnecessary to show exactly what that something is. Outside of formal considerations the film still has a lot going for it. The plot, though relatively low on drama and entirely devoid of histrionics, is engrossing. In brief, the story is driven by the nuances of the close relationships of the wealthy men and the "Flower" girls within this insular community. This aspect reminded me in many ways of Mikio Naruse's (excellent) film, "When a Woman Ascends the Stairs." Like that film, "Flowers of Shanghai" looks at these relationships both in economic and in what can only be desctibed as familial terms. Going far beyond the clear issues of gender, probably the most interesting part of the story is its portrait of the friendships, rivalries, jealousies, obligations, and manipulations just within the 'family' of girls living together in the Flowerhouse, and how these interactions effect the larger 'family' that includes their male patrons. "Flowers of Shanghai" is a clear formal masterpiece, and manages to tell a fascinating story at the same time. Certified genius Philip Lopate (who also often writes for the NY Times) calls the film "one of the cinematic highpoints of the 90's." The film-fest pass-holder hype surrounding Hou Hsiao-Hsien is well-founded. But be warned that the same stylistic handling that drives me to cry 'masterpiece' will leave some crying of boredom.