Amid the opulent teahouses of 1930s Hong Kong, a humble courtesan and the wayward scion of a wealthy family fall in love and embrace death by suicide pact. Fifty years later, her ghost returns to find him, drawing a young contemporary couple into her quest to rekindle a passion that may be as illusory as time itself.
Yim ji kau, Yin Ji Kau, 연지구, Румяна, ルージュ, Son Môi Đỏ, หวงรักเสน่หา
Hong Kong
Hong Kong
"How I wish it would last forever"
Romanticism is poison, but we sure need it in our charmless streets. It never occured to me before today that Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui both passed away with six months of each other in 2003 and are forever conserved at splendor of their movie star youth here.
In my first Summer of Sammo reviews of Hong Kong New Wave films I've noted that the characters, young people in Hong Kong, are haunted by the largely unexpressed past, the geographic dislocations and family break-ups of World War II and civil war in Days of Being Wild and the Cultural Revolution in and Stanley Kwan's Full Moon in New York. That haunting is both expressed and literalized in Kwan's Rouge, as Anita Mui's spectral courtesan shows up in 1987 Hong Kong looking for the ghost of her lover Leslie Cheung and enlisting a modern couple in her search.
As the story alternates between past and present (it begins in a 1930s brothel, a setting familiar from Hou Hsiao-hsien's slightly…
the existence of a love so powerful that it transcends time, space and even death is what keeps me breathing. understands how random little gestures and moments can set off a flurry of memories of the one you love, the desperation to hold them in your arms again, the sensation of their lips on yours. everything I dreamed it would be and more.
Of the many films I've seen so far for the first time this year, this one has been the best.
I feel like I'm only going to continue thinking about this movie for a long while, because of how it presents the idea that love can be so strong, to the point its limits are never tested by time, death, and presence. This was only my third Stanley Kwan film, and I have only ever found myself so thoroughly impressed by his works but the dreaminess of the romance we're experiencing in Rouge only ever finds itself realized as how one idealizes such. And knowing this, I love how this film slowly breaks apart the fantasy in which it indulges…
NEED GHOST ANITA MUI GF URGENTLY
The old man makeup on Leslie Cheung, who died at 46, was kind of the most haunting part of this
With the news of Hong Kong’s handover to China lingering in the cultural air, Stanley Kwan’s romantic fantasy is a film interested in looking back, channelling ghosts of the past and memories of a place that once was into an elegiac little mood piece which does a great job of drawing you in over its deceptively understated story.
To that end, supernatural elements are threaded in here, but not for horror, Kwan instead taking the hallmarks of the genre and using them for a low-key, intimate reworking, using the idea of a restless spirit to contrast past and present in a thoughtful and often very poignant way.
He uses Fleur’s crossing over to blend the two seemingly separate timelines into…
The suicide of Leslie Cheung, one of the most beloved showbiz personalities in Hong Kong, was quite the shocker back in 2003. His unexpected death is something I’ve always known, but what’s new to me is the fact that fellow actor/singer superstar Anita Mui also passed away in similar, untimely fashion during the exact same year (due to cancer). I was frankly stunned after reading about this unfortunate bit of trivia. To see both Anita and Leslie in each others’ arms fifteen years earlier here in Stanley Kwan’s tragic and ghostly love story is beyond poignant to say the least. It’s almost like fate.
So, would you die for love? That’s the question raised by Rouge, a beautifully haunting, romantic…
When I was younger, I used to think this was so romantic. I was an idiot. I mean, yes, it’s a sumptuous gothic ghost story exploring longing and love and loss transcending time. But also, it’s a slow realisation that some people just aren’t worth giving so much of yourself to and if there’s no trust then it might not be the great love you think it is. Just all done in a very quiet and softly profound way, that my brain didn’t get back then.
Story aside, the film is visually so beautiful to look at. And I’m not just talking about Leslie Chueng’s and Anita Mui’s faces, that’s a given. But those 1930s flashbacks to the brothels, all…
One of the most brilliant uses of a ghost story I've ever seen. Not only is the story itself compelling, but it can also be read in a myriad of ways, a classic example of a "rich text." I feel like I'll need to see it a few more times to have anything intelligent to say about it, so I'll mostly just point you to two reviews that I liked with very different takes on the film. First, this review from SCREENGAZER, which goes into (among many other things) the use of red in the movie and how it's used to express anxiety towards the handover to mainland China. This is a long one, but I promise it's worth your…
Wow. What a gorgeous film, with such a fascinating premise. A courtesan named Fleur (Anita Mui) dies in the 30s, and she “comes back” fifty years later to find her lover Chen Chen-Pang (Leslie Cheung). This premise could and has been handled in a clumsy and over the top manner in countless films, but here it is subtle and magical.
The longing and sadness Chen-Pang faced in life is gracefully magnified when she returns. The love affair is convincing, but never bogged down by melodrama or romantic cliches. The class conflict is crushing, but communicated with passive-aggressive comments and implied impossibility.
And did I mention that it’s ******* gorgeous?! The blast-of-color dresses and haunted alleys are reminiscent of In the Mood for Love, until…
The shattering of idealized romance through a love-lorn ghost visiting 80's Hong Kong.
It's impossible for me not to be moved by a film whose emotional climax takes place on the set of a Wuxia film.
