Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

GertrudeStern I came to this movie because Mark Lee Ping Bin did the cinematography, and I was not let down. For a movie that never leaves the four walls of various brothels throughout Shanghai, each scene really fills up the screen, has irresistible colors and lighting and splendor, only to fade softly into black and light up into something new. Imagine how delighted I was to find that the cinematography was matched by an equally strong concept, and that the film is basically a series of vitriolic or pining Craigstlist missed connections ads nestled within an intricate and iron-clad social hierarchy.A fun touch: in the first conversation of the film, one master tells a tale over dinner, sitting around the table with his friends and their companions. It is the story of Crystal (whose outcome will be revealed later in the film) and her lover, a young patron named Yufu. The speaker says that Crystal and Yufu are joined together like toffee, star-crossed lovers who can't get enough of each other. Soon, a debate breaks out: is this type of love a healthy way to live? A few men balk at the idea that growing gaunt from staring into one another's eyes is acceptable. Then the film drags us through countless loveless or otherwise fraught relationships where everyone is withering, suicidal or raging. Seems that in 19th century Shanghai, you just can't win.Watch out for Master Wang...he's the pesky stray thread that undoes the whole damned sweater.

gil-bedard I bought this movie--oh, pardon me, "film"--because I am fascinated with Chinese culture. And because I have a new, Chinese lady in my life. I thought my having this movie would impress her, in the unlikely event that my charm wasn't sufficient! I must also confess that the beautiful cover of the DVD case (which is also depicted at IMDb) in the video store seduced me. I'm such a sucker for shrewd marketing. "A visually ravishing masterpiece...One of the most beautiful films ever made", proclaims the endorsement on the cover. In addition, to a westerner, anything with the word "Shanghai" in it seems to evoke romantic images of far away places--far away places which when visited, more often than not, make one yearn for home. Alas. The grass is always greener on the other side.The entire movie was shot indoors, probably on a budget of $10,000, in the drawing rooms of brothels, with rather poor lighting to boot. Oh, I know the candle-lit ambience was intentional. Still, it was rather hard on the eyes. A ray of sunlight would have been a welcome relief.It is essentially a series of vignettes about the relationships between Chinese hookers, their johns & mesdames, to put it bluntly. Petty jealousies, whining, conniving & duplicity abound. From FOS, I learned that women in 1880s Shanghai were just as catty as women in 2000s Winnipeg, Canada. The hookers spend much of their time pouting that their johns weren't paying off their old debts fast enough. Chinese men of that era were, apparently, just as naïve & dumb as Canadian men today, a sad fact to which I can attest from experience. (I don't know about you guys, but now when I meet a woman who even hints that I should pay her bills, I bolt.)Obviously, the director has studied Ingmar Bergman well: FOS is just as uninspiring as Bergman's depressing "masterpieces". One user gushes that this movie's cinematography "can be simply orgasmic at times". Yeah, right. Unfortunately, there wasn't one orgasm had during the movie's plodding two hour plus run time. At least that might have awoken me from my slumber as I struggled to maintain interest in the movie.This ain't no "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", believe me. Now THAT is a movie, eh? Action! Adventure! Romance! Unrequited love! The folly of youth! The folly of middle-age! FOS is more like a dirge compared to that movie. It is what you'd get if Igmar Bergman were to direct an episode of Masterpiece Theatre. (Is that still running? I dunno, 'cause I haven't watched TV in eight years.) I suffered through about an hour of FOS until I couldn't take any more.So much for "films". Give me a good ol' movie any day, thank you. Long live the Coen brothers! And Spielberg! This one's going back to the video store--that is, if they're stupid enough to take it back.

allyjack The movie is told through scenes shot mainly (perhaps solely) in a single shot of slow, composed movement - it never moves outside; it's utterly claustrophobic and hermetic. In the beginning it's too much of a whirlpool of characters to be assimilated, but then the audacity of the structure starts to clarify - some of those initial people never seem to be seen again, whereas others recur - slowly building a theme of the flower girls' aspirations to freedom or at least self-determination. There's no overt passion here, no nudity, no sex - motivations remain somewhat obscure although they're obviously born in an intricate subculture of sexual politics and social hierarchies - these are unfolded gradually, but remain as formalized and inaccessible as the strange game the men continually play (that just seems to consist of words and hand movements). There's a sort of resigned serenity to the way that some stories but not others find closure, and the camerawork evokes a calm, mystic eye - finding moments of truth but never yielding its mystery.

dave-593 Hou Hsiao-Hsien's "Flowers of Shanghai" is an opium dream of a movie: visually and aurally there is no mistaking that this is the work of an artist with the imagination of a poet, and the precision of a clockmaker. The opening shot is among the most exquisite in all of cinema: a veritable tour de force that exudes Hou's love for the film medium, but is decidedly restrained and controlled, never allowing style to upstage the narrative and degenerate into mere spectacle. In keeping with the film's setting and rules of patriarchy, the major male characters are introduced first. The women serving these men are then introduced in the following "chapters", each one preceded by title cards announcing their names and place of residence as if gently mocking or subverting the patriarchical order.This chamberpiece drama of sexual intrigue and power struggle is astonishingly acute in capturing the feel and sensibilities of the late 19th century but expressed in very contemporary terms without any apparent compromises or contradictions. The painterly colors of "Flowers" may invite comparison with Dutch masters like Vermeer even when Hou is deliberately conjuring an idealized world that is as hermetic as it is artificial: a world composed entirely without natural light is like a dream, hauntingly beautiful and intense but impossible to hold or to keep. That the film is shot entirely indoors and the mise-en-scene is orchestrated without any close-ups is a testament of Hou's faith and supreme confidence in creating a work that remains completely cinematic while averting the pitfalls of feeling stage bound. Despite the subject matter what is also startling is the complete absence of physical sex on screen; and, yet the film manages to sustain an erotically charged atmosphere.Beginning with "The Puppetmaster" Hou has been increasingly moving towards a more minimalist form of cinema, stripping the narrative of everything that is superfluous until nothing is left but its emotional core, naked and unadulterated. "Flowers" is very much an interior film that does not depend on voiceover narration to make thoughts explicit. Hou's almost static camera continues to favor long medium takes ranging from 5 to 7 minutes, framing key characters sharing the same space and time, but well within reach of each other, capturing the subtle interplay and nuances while allowing them to drift in and out of the picture frame according to their relative importance in the social hierarchy. In this manner an entire community is evoked: demonstrating that the window to the world is precisely through the interior lives of individuals responsible for shaping the body politic.