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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 "Slow, Uneventful and Stilted - Like watching paint dry!" I bought this DVD on the basis of the single review in Amazon and thought that I would do other prospective buyers a service so that you do not waste money as I did. So here's my review.... This is the most boring and stilted film it's been my misfortune to watch for some time (and believe me I see a lot of films). There is nothing to keep one's interest, neither sympathy nor interest for the characters nor the visual aspects of the film. That's not to say that I was expecting a high-octane thriller with car chases and explosions but even the most artful of "art house" films should still generate some degree of interest in the viewer. Having a story-line would help also. I couldn't discern one here. The entire film takes place in what looks like exactly the same set but to make it look like somewhere else they have moved some of the chairs around. After ten minutes you want to press "pause" and go to make coffee - you know that feeling, don't you - when a film fails to grip you and drag you into its world. Anyway, I tried to persevere and not give in to the boredom but after around an hour my girlfriend begged me, (actually "threatened" is a more appropriate word) to take it off so I "threw in the towel" at that point. Approximately nothing had happened by then anyway and there seemed to be little liklihood of any developments before the end of the film. Unfortunately this film tries to make it's main weakness (lack of anything happening) into an asset (Chinese inscrutibility, "Atmosphere") and fails miserably. Save your money and use it to buy some of the better Chinese films which are available, many of which are excellent such as "Raise the Red Lantern". ""Flowers of Shanghai" - a visually stunning masterpiece." (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. "Hothouse Flowers" 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. "beautiful, but tedious" Flowers of Shanghai chronicles the lives of three "flower girls" [a sort of high-class prostitute] in late ninteenth century China. The movie is beautiful to look at, but leaden, overcontrolled, and tediously precise and intricate. The stories of these women, and their male customers, are uninteresting and banal in the extreme. The characters are continually indulging in opium and hashish -- and after the first twenty minutes, I began to feel as if I had, too. My eyelids began to droop, my brain went numb, and it was all I could do to stay awake, to see if anything interesting eventually happened. I have an appreciation for beautiful, slow moving films [After Life, In The Mood For Love, Heart of Light -- to name a few]; but this one just made me want to jump up and down and scream "enough already!" "Impressionistic & lovely - feels like an opium haze..." The films that I've seen by Hou Hsiao-hsien have all been "difficult" in the sense that their rewards were not there on the surface level. They employ exceptionally long shots, are in a foreign language, have little overt action, and the dialogue tends to be more about day to day concerns than about plot advancement. Nonetheless, I continue to be driven to see his films, since upon reflection or subsequent viewings I feel that I didn't just see an average film, but that I was transported into another world (I realize this is a huge cliche, but I can think of no other director that evokes this feeling so well.) Flowers of Shanghai probably isn't Hou's best film, (I'd have to say "The Puppetmaster" would qualify there) but perhaps it is his prettiest. The film is set exclusively in a turn of the century Taiwanese brothel. The narrative set before us is sketchy (mostly it has to deal with prostitutes dueling over the same rich client) but the detail of the environment is unsurpassed. We see the characters as they gossip about each other, discuss their finances, and talk about the needs of the courtesans. No scenes take place outside of the brothel, so by the end of the film, we feel we have more of an understanding of the brothel's function in that society. The acting is great, though you'd be hard pressed to pick the professional actors from the non-actors. Hou's style is consistent with most of his work in that we get extremely long shots. In this film, Hou pans almost constantly, always finding something else to look at in the shot. The costuming and art direction are so good that you forget that they have been fabricated to make a film. Basically, everything feels authentic here. By focusing on a small faction of a society, Hou manages to get everything right. The film is a small wonder, and is highly recommended.