Flowers of Shanghai | Blu-ray (Criterion)
RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2021
On May 18, 2021, Criterion Collection will be releasing the Blu-ray for Flowers of Shanghai, a 1998 period drama from director Hou Hsiao-hsien (The Assassin).
The film stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai (Chungking Express), Carina Lau Kar Ling (The Eagle Shooting Heroes), Annie Shizuka Inoh (My Kingdom), Michiko Hada (Tokuso 9), Michelle Reis (Bodyguards and Assassins) and Jack Kao (Island on Fire).
Read the official details below:
An intoxicating, time-bending experience bathed in the golden glow of oil lamps and wreathed in an opium haze, this gorgeous period reverie by Hou Hsiao-hsien traces the romantic intrigue, jealousies, and tensions swirling around four late-nineteenth-century Shanghai “flower houses,” where the courtesans live confined to a gilded cage, ensconced in opulent splendor but forced to work to buy back their freedom. Among the regular clients is the taciturn Master Wang (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), whose relationship with his longtime mistress (Michiko Hada) is roiled by a perceived act of betrayal. Composed in a languorous procession of entrancing long takes, Flowers of Shanghai evokes a vanished world of decadence and cruelty, an insular universe where much of the dramatic action remains tantalizingly offscreen—even as its emotional fallout registers with quiet devastation.
Special Features and Specs:
- New 4K Restoration, supervised by director Hou Hsiao-hsien and director of photography Mark Lee Ping-bing, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- New introduction by critic Tony Rayns
- Beautified Realism, a new documentary by Daniel Raim and Eugene Suen on the making of the film, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Lee, producer and editor Liao Ching-sung, production designer Huang Wen-ying, and sound recordist Tu Duu-chih
- Excerpts from a 2015 interview with Hou, recorded for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Oral History Project
- Trailer
- English subtitle translation by Tony Rayns
- PLUS: An essay by film scholar Jean Ma and a 2009 interview with Hou conducted by scholar Michael Berry
Pre-order from Amazon.com today!
