Flowers of Shanghai (Hai shang hua) (1998)
Average Rating: 8.1/10
Reviews Counted: 9
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 1
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 0
liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 2,115
My Rating
Movie Info
Shanghai, the 1880s, four elegant brothels (flower houses): each has an auntie (the madam), a courtesan in her prime, older servants, and maturing girls in training. The men gather around tables of food, playing drinking games. An opium pipe is at hand. The women live within dark-paneled walls. The atmosphere is stifling, as if Chekov was in China. The melancholy Wang is Crimson's patron; will he leave her for the younger Jasmin? Emerald schemes to buy her freedom, aided by Luo, a patron. Pearl,
Nov 1, 1998 Wide
Aug 14, 2001
Wellspring Media Inc.
Cast
-
Michiko Hada
Crimson -
Michelle Reis
Emerald -
Carina Liu
Pearl -
Jack Kao
Luo -
Rebecca Pan
Auntie Huang -
Wei Hsiao-hui
Jasmin -
Fang Hsuan
Jade -
Annie Shizuka Inoh
Golden Flower -
Hsu Ming
Tao -
Lee Yu-ming
A-zhu -
Luo Tsai-erh
Hong -
Lin Yu-han
Treasure -
Simon Chang
Zhu Shuren -
Lee Yu-hang
Tang -
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All Critics (16) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (1) | DVD (4)
It's beautiful to look at, but you must have patience to enjoy it.
Top CriticFlowers of Shanghai is a beautiful, tantalizingly oblique, and thoroughly hypnotic film, a work so sensual that one can nearly smell the perfume wafting from the screen.
Sympathetically depicts ... consuming, love-sick ennui.
Each scene of Flowers is like an exquisite and decorous mural, worth studying.
It probably isn't Hou's best film, but perhaps it is his prettiest.
Hou's a gifted director, as even his poorer films are quite good.
Contains an artistry, beauty, restraint, and patience that perhaps only Stanley Kubrick, Max Ophuls, or Kenji Mizoguchi possessed.
Audience Reviews for Flowers of Shanghai (Hai shang hua)
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Foreign Titles
- Flowers of Shanghai (DE)
- Flowers of Shanghai (UK)
