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Summary: The difference between Hong Kong films and American films...
Review: ...is that, in Hong Kong films, pop stars can act. With this statement, I'm not only thinking about Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui in this film, but also Faye Wong in Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express. Rouge is not the typical Hong Kong movie. Although Jackie Chan is listed in the credits as its executive producer, Rouge does not include spectacular kung-fu fight sequences. The description of the movie printed on the back of my copy of Rouge says it "belongs to a more select category, the Cantonese art film." I can really see this in the opening sequence, which I think is the best part of the whole film. Does anyone know the song that Anita Mui sings in the beginning? I do not speak Cantonese so I can't understand it, but even without the words it is still very beautiful. Director Stanley Kwan artfully balances the tragic main plot (concerning Fleur and Twelfth Master) and the less intriguing subplot (the relationship between Yuan and his girlfriend) to contrast the grandeur of 1930s Hong Kong with the banality of 1980s Hong Kong. The only other Stanley Kwan film I have seen is his more recent Lan Yu, and I can definitely say that Rouge is better.
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Summary: Rouge is no Rogue
Review: A beautiful, sad, sad movie. This movie won lots of awards (5) in Hong Kong in 1987 and makes the Chinese Ghost Story trilogy (which I liked and also star Leslie Cheung) seem positively silly. This is a touching movie, with a perfect ending, I think. (And when is the last time you could say that about a movie?) Any women who want to know whether their guy is worth keeping should put him in front of this and see how quick he proposes.I am a guy however, and I admit I picked up this movie to see Anita Mui. Her performance here is superb. She is most gorgeous in her scenes without make-up. Stunning. I don't know how I have missed her films all these years, but it is a joy to discover them. The juxtaposition between past and present is well conceived and implemented, and the movie flows seemlessly. I know this cost almost twice as much as an American film - but hey - you only live once. Spend the money.
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Summary: A dvd without final...
Review: A film sensitive, interesting and sad. Sad but beautiful. Until the sixth chapter, when the dvd joined and it impeded me of continuing. Since then, the dvd presents defect...
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Summary: Not as good as others in genre
Review: After reading the initial reviews on the site, I was expecting much more from this film. It simply does not stack up to the emotional punch and narrative vision of films like "Raise the Red Lantern" "Temptress Moon" "Farewell My Concubine" or "Shanghai Triad." The atmosphere in the other films I have listed is so thick you can smell the opera paint and incence, but Rogue was less engrossing, less compelling, less moving. The ghost from the past was ackward in modern-day Hong Kong. The directing was also a little weak in comparison with the top rate work on the films listed above. Leslie Cheung is fine, as in his later works, above, but I was not overly impressed with the female lead. She certainly does not hold a candle to Gong Li, who is the goddess of current Chinese cinema! All in all, fine for a rental, but not a repeat viewer . . .
Rating:
Summary: Not as good as others in genre
Review: After reading the initial reviews on the site, I was expecting much more from this film. It simply does not stack up to the emotional punch and narrative vision of films like "Raise the Red Lantern" "Temptress Moon" "Farewell My Concubine" or "Shanghai Triad." The atmosphere in the other films I have listed is so thick you can smell the opera paint and incence, but Rogue was less engrossing, less compelling, less moving. The ghost from the past was ackward in modern-day Hong Kong. The directing was also a little weak in comparison with the top rate work on the films listed above. Leslie Cheung is fine, as in his later works, above, but I was not overly impressed with the female lead. She certainly does not hold a candle to Gong Li, who is the goddess of current Chinese cinema! All in all, fine for a rental, but not a repeat viewer . . .
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Summary: I loved this film!!!!
Review: I really loved this film. It was played at a Hong Kong Film Festival held at the college I attend and it was my favorite film at the festival. It has a touch of romance, a bit of sadness, drama, and at the end a cause to cheer. If you like supernatural things or romances than I highly recommend this film.
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Summary: Beautiful and Tragic
Review: Rouge is the story of a 23 year old Chinese Prostitute named Fleur who falls in love with a client, the heir of a rich merchant. When her lover's father refuses to let them marry they run away together, but tragedy soon follows, and faced with the sadness of separation, the two decide to commit suicide together. Fleur becomes a ghost, doomed to search for her lost lover who has not followed up in hell. Enlisting the aid of a newspaper editor and his girlfriend, she publishes an ad in the paper directing him to meet her one last time. The sound track of this movie was first rate, and the acting was superb. I really enjoyed Fleur, even if I thought her lover was rather wimpy. The movie is well worth the watch, a must for Hong Kong Ghost film fans!
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Summary: Enchanting
Review: Rouge tells the story of Fleur (Anita Mui), a beautiful courtesan in 1930's Hong Kong and her lover (played by Leslie Cheung) whose parents forbid him from marrying Fleur. The two attempt suicide, but only Fleur dies, leaving her ghost to search for her lover for more than fifty years. Fleur's ghost puts an ad in the newspaper in the 1980's and enlists the help of a reporter and his girlfriend.
The atmosphere in "Rouge" is outstanding and Kwan skillfully employs the right camera shots to supply specific moments in the film with a certain element of spookiness. The scene with Fleur's ghost on the tram with the reporter is unforgettably creepy.
Anita Mui is splendidly enchanting throughout the whole film. With or without makeup, every shot of her is exquisite. Leslie Cheung also gives a fine performance. Fans of these two late (both died in 2003) and extraordinary actors should definitely watch the two of them together in this film.
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Summary: Fatalism (and Kwan's new gay film....)
Review: Stanley Kwan's films are usually characterized with fatalism; the female characters are often destined to somewhere fatal. Thus his female characters are mortal--and immortal--at the same time. ROUGE is a film which I would love to watch from time to time, and its poignancy has always powerful. Often said to be the male director who knows the females the most thoroughly, Kwan is also good at representation of the males--when he means to. His new film "LAN YU," which is backgrounded in 1990-2000's Beijing, China, turns to focus on 1 gay boy (who is called LAN YU) and 1 bisexual machismo man (who is called Hang-Dong, a name with implication to "defend Mao Zedong'). This film is amazingly done, with impressive affection, poigancy, heaviness, doom. Again, fatalism. Kwan's fatalism might be controversial: while he makes his movies beautiful and memorized with fatalism, his fatalism might be accused to be "conservative." (tragic endings seem to prevail in his films) Yet, if this fatalism is contextualized in today's Chinese societies (HK, Taiwan, China, and Chinese Dispora), it might be more understandable. In any case, after watching LAN YU, I cannot but recall ROUGE, whose impact stays. I highly expect that LAN YU can be released widely, and its videotapes and DVDs can be available among Chinese societies (especially the beefy CHINA)--this representation of China's homosexuality is to be cherished.
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Summary: Ultimately beautiful
Review: The prostitute Ruhua fell in love with Chen Zhenbang from a rich family, but the Chen's family opposed their marriage. Chen decided to leave his family and stayed with Ruhua. But the cruelty of life without the ability and endurance to make a living soon follows. Half a year later, they decided to commit suicide together and promised to stay together in another world. After her death, Ruhua could not find Chen, but she refused to drink the Mengpo soup to forget the past so that she could reincarnate. After 53 years of waiting, she went back plaintively to look for him. But in the end, she found Cheng Zhengbang was still alive and had become a mumbling lowlife old man. Disappointed with his cowardice, she returned him the rough box that she wore for 53 years and left calmly. The screenplay writer Lillian Lee (also the author of the original novel) often writes in a rather less elegant tone. Never a perfect love story with a faithful couple, but rather one-sided with a determined prostitute, radical about love and a dandy from a rich family with a coward deep inside his heart. But with Lee's extremely versed cultural knowledge and somewhat rebellious style (but not for the sake of just being rebellious), the storytelling always turns out to be poignantly enthralling. Stanley Kwan weaved it so well in every detail without destroying the fluency of the movie or the fluency of my feeling throughout the movie. Artistical without affectation; masterful without pretentiousness, this one easily falls into my favorite type.
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