Miss Du Shi Niang (2003)

Last night i watched the OTHER dvd i bought in HK last month... one starring our old buddy Dan Wu called Miss Du Shi Niang. Its his first period piece... a story about a famous prostitute falling in love w/ an innocent kid to escape her life of sexual enslavement. Its really hard to define this movie... its sort of told like a morality tale type story (reminded of the first "Sex and Zen") , but somehow it doesn't quite work out (not enough morality i guess?) it definitely doesn't work as a romance, nor as a stand alone comedy... so i guess the best description is 'not very convincing morality tale' it REALLY has the feeling of a stage play (which apparently it was... and the only thing the director had worked on before). Dan had mentioned this to me last time i talked to him, and i totally felt it while watching it. the use of the camera and sets is just WAY not cinematic! (does that make sense?) :-P Dan plays the goody goody boy who is alured by Miss Du Shi Niang... most beautiful, most famous prostitute in the entire province... played by Michelle Reis (who looks a lot better then she did last time I saw her in 'The irresistable Piggies' when she had a bad comb-over!) the 'Glasses lady" also stars as the Madam at the brothel. (I'll spare you the pictures, you know who I'm talking about!) It has some nice musical numbers, including a Zatoichi-like number at the end where all the characters come back, forget all their troubles and rejoice in dance. (strangely enough the Ancient Chinese had a dance very similar to Square Dancing, i did not know that!) I enjoyed seeing Dan in a role quite different then most of his previous roles, and i like anything with Michelle in it, so I'll give this one a lukewarm 6/10. (and yet it too is not in the RT database!) click here for the Official Website here's a good thorough review w/ lots of pics Click here for the trailer!