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Flowers of Shanghai
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List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $19.47
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Starring: Annie Shizuka Inoh, Michiko Hada, Shuan Fang, Jack Kao, Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Directed By: Hsiao-hsien Hou
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780794201050
Format: Color
ISBN: 0794201059
Label: Fox Lorber
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2001-08-14
Running Time: 113
Studio: Fox Lorber
Theatrical Release Date: 1998
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Opium,tea and customers keep the "Flowers" of Shanghai in bloom!
Comment: This will not be everyone's cup of green tea.If you are expecting CROUCHING...HIDDEN etc, go elsewhere. If you enjoy deliberate and fixated camera work that moves as slowly and intriquitely as the graceful,quiet movements of the girls of the brothels themselves, then read on, watch the film and learn!This film shows us brothel life in the upscale,British-district "Flower Houses" of 1880's China.Four "flowers" (the girls) are examined in depth through their daily routines, their hopes, their dreams, their motivations, their debts and their customers.The camera work is very reminiscent, IMO, of John Huston's THE DEAD or Terrence Davies films THE LONG DAY CLOSES and NEON BIBLE.The camera slowly,ever so slowly moves as a third party observer;never intruding, but always observing the "hidden" world of the liaisons of the women and men.There is nothing sexual about this film.It is all about the contractual agreements and the way business is done;
Opium and green tea are the main ingredients.
The scenes always take place within the British/Chinese decored "house" parlours, and the lighting is illumined by the natural gas and candlelight to recreate authenticity.
I thought the film brilliant and engrossing, but I am the type that does not require action to keep alert.If you enjoy examining characters closely and increasing your knowledge of the time period and the subject matter, than this will indeed be your cup of green tea!
Customer Rating:
Summary: An awkward and boring movie
Comment: As a native speaker of Shanghai dialect, I have to say that the script is horrible with dialogs very boring and unnatural. Everyone seems to be able to cut their 5 minutes conversation into 20 seconds to mean what they mean. I love slow Chinese movies that use subtle dialogs to hint at the unseen plots (like In the Mood of Love),because it is an efficient and artful way to present the story while focusing on the characters, but the dialogs here only amplify the blankness of the characters. This is a big disappointment especially because the stories can be potentially interesting and the cast is good! It may be pretty to look at, but I would rather stare at a painting.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Least interesting of all Chinese films I have seen so far
Comment: I have seen about 45 Chinese films and I have to say "Flowers of Shanghai" is the least interesting one I have seen so far. I don't mind very slow movies and some of the other Chinese movies I have liked, such as "Yellow Earth" are also slow paced.
"Flowers of Shanghai" takes place in a brothel visited by very well to do Qing officials during the 1880's in Shanghai, a city notorious for its brothels between the late 19th century to the 1930's. While this historical context provides for a potentially interesting storyline, I did not find the scenes of drinking, games and conversations among the Qing officials and their expensive ladies interesting.
I am sorry to say I do not recommend "Flowers of Shanghai" unless you are a fan of Hsiao-hsien Hou, the director.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Please save your money
Comment: Well, to put it in the most polite terms I can think of, this film is on my all time 10 worst films list. I think this film definitely has the potential to top that list.
I am a native speaker Chinese speaker. Plus, I am a native speaker of the Shanghai dialect, the same dialect the actors/actresses in this movie are supposed speak. Well let me tell you from a language standpoint, I had absolutely no idea what those actors/actresses are saying. No clue whatsoever.
It was so painful to hear those actors butcher the Shanghai dialect so badly that I couldn't keep myself from burstting out laughing throughout the movie. It was THAT BAD!? For crying out loud, if the actors couldn't speak the Shanghai dialect, at least use do some dubbing and use some voice actors that can actually speak the Shanghai dialect.
The lead male actor in the movie butchered his Shanghai dialect so badly in the beginning of the movie, that he ended up switching to his native Cantonese dialect for the remainder of the movie. God this is embarrasing.
For a native speaker of Chinese, and a native speaker of the Shanghai dialect, I had to read subtitles in order to understand what's going on in this movie. On top of this, I had to read the subtitles in ENGLISH! Yes that's right, this DVD doesn't even include a Chinese subtitle!
I basically ended up fast forwarding through this movie. The director really should have done some serious work in the cutting room. This movie have the potential to be a good 10 minute short film. But at an hour and half in length, this movie is one of the WORST I have ever seen.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing, Claustrophobic And A Bit Sad
Comment: This is a gorgeous, claustrophobic and mesmerizing movie about the flower girls -- the prostitutes -- who live and work in four elegant brothels -- the flower houses -- in Shanghai during the late 19th century. The film is set entirely in these houses. There is no natural light, everything is lit by dim lamps and candles. The world is made of dark, carved wood, silks and polished lacquer. There are no cuts, just slow dissolves to black and then into another scene, and the scene can be a continuation of a sequence separated only by minutes, or a move to a different flower girl in a another of the brothels. The effect is almost dream-like.
Flower girls are purchased by the "aunties," the women who run the brothels, when they are 7 or 8. The aunties raise them, feed them, clothe them and train them in the profession of pleasing wealthy men. None have much of a future unless they can fascinate a customer enough to begin a long-term relationship ending in marriage as a second or third wife.
There is Crimson who is supporting her family, and who finds herself unable to keep her relationship with Master Wang (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). There is Jasmine, who manages to marry Wang, and then is foolish enough to enter into an affair. There is Emerald, who is ambitious and knows her worth, who is determined to buy her freedom. There is Jade, increasingly popular and who thinks a young customer's statement of love is true. And there are the men, who spend hours dining and playing drinking games in the houses, attended by the women who pour their wine, laugh with them, prepare their opium pipes and entertain them privately by appointments made with the aunties. By the end of the movie we also realize that while we hear less of Jasmine, Crystal, Pearl and the other women we met or heard about earlier, we now are hearing more about Jade, Treasure, Golden Flower, Laurel, Silver Phoenix, newer flowers of Shanghai. Yet the men remain the same, only a bit older. I want to emphasize that this is no soap opera. Everything has a value, everything can be bargained for, but subtly.
I think this movie is a fascinating look at a different time and style of life. You have to stay with it, though. It's one of those films where at first you may not be sure much is happening. A good deal does, but you have to be open to it.
The DVD picture looks great, rich and dark; the subtitles are black-edged yellow and easy to read quickly. The only extra of significance is a filmography.
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