7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In late-19th-century Shanghai, brothels are known as “flower houses.” A small and confined world unto themselves, the brothels offer an alternate universe for the well-to-do male clientele. But for the women who work within, the brothels are no fantasyland; they either succumb to this reality or fight against destiny.
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Michiko Hada, Michelle Reis, Carina Lau, Rebecca PanForeign | 100% |
Drama | 76% |
Romance | 18% |
Period | 5% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Cantonese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There's an old aphorism that certain activities can be "as exciting as watching paint dry", and some watching this elegant if awfully slow film from Hou Hsiao-Hsien may feel the phrase should be modified to be "as exciting as watching flowers bloom". The "flowers" in this case are actually "working girls" in brothels, which according to Chinese vernacular are called "flower houses". There's some really interesting information available online about the source novel which inspired this film, an 1892 opus by Han Bangqing which has been published under a number of evocative and maybe even charming titles, including The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai. One of the fascinating trivia data points (and one which is also overtly mentioned by Tony Rayns in his introduction to the film included on this disc as a bonus feature as well), at least for those interested in language and/or dialect, is that Bangqing was evidently a proponent of so-called Wu Chinese, which is largely unintelligible to Mandarin speakers. In that regard, it's kind of interesting to note that the back cover of this release describes the spoken language(s) as "Shanghainese and Cantonese", which I think is the first such aggregation of languages that I've seen cross my review queue. What ever the "linguistic" aspects of Flowers of Shanghai might be, the film is probably going to be somewhat of a slog for some viewers, but it still provides a compelling peek at a 19th century China and some of its traditions which may strike contemporary eyes and sensibilities as "problematic".
Flowers of Shanghai is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Criterion's insert booklet contains the following information on the transfer:
Flowers of Shanghai is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. This new 4K digital restoration was undertaken at L'Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy, from a 35 mm negative by Shochiku, in collaboration with the Shanghai International Film Festival and with funding provided by Jaeger-LeCoultre. The new 5.1 surround soundtrack was created by sound designer Tu Duu-chih from digital audio master files.Kind of interestingly in terms of my memories of having seen this theatrically decades ago and then later on DVD and now this version, there's a subsequent credit which states:
Color grading consultant: Mark Lee Ping-bingI try not to rely on an increasingly faulty memory of having viewed a film theatrically let alone on DVD, but the grading of this version struck me immediately as "different", if not necessarily "wrong", in terms of what I remember having seen so long ago, but I am the sort of person who tends to rely on the wishes of a director and/or (in this particular case) director of photography in terms of assessing color timing rather than my memories. That said, as can be gleaned from many of the screenshots, there's a recurrent tendency toward a mixture of oranges and greens throughout this presentation that can give things a kind of almost chartreuse suffusion a lot of the time. That, when combined with the glut of relatively dimly lit interior scenes, can lead to some loss of fine detail in darker tones especially. Because of the grading choices in combination with lighting regimens, there's a slightly "alien" look to the palette which can give an almost ghoulishly green aspect to things like flesh tones. While there is grain which can be spotted crawling up lighter portions of backgrounds or even rolling across lighter portions in the foreground of the frame, the appearance here is soft and filtered looking at times. There's also a kind of curious tendency to walk right up to the edge of posterizing, especially with regard to some of the orange tones, perhaps due to a "combo platter" of some of these aforementioned anomalies. You can notice it especially when lighting can change slightly and heads move, or even when some of the females wearing what I assume were silk or satin reflective material, and there can be brief passing "blotches" that accompany movement and/or lighting variances. All of this said, this still offers rather nice suffusion and a general improvement in detail levels over the now long ago DVD. In looking at our forum threads for various previous Blu-ray releases and some issues members encountered with those, I was especially watching for issues like banding and macroblocking, and I noticed nothing in those categories. My score is 3.75.
Flowers of Shanghai features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is described (as mentioned above in the main body of the review) as being in "Shanghainese and Cantonese" on the back cover of this release. Despite taking place almost exclusively in rather small, confined spaces, there's an appealing spread to much of this surround track. The sonorous score by Yoshihiro Hanno is often very nicely spread through the side and rear channels, and there is good directionality in some of the scenes that feature a lot of characters in the frame simultaneously. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and I noticed no issues whatsoever with regard to damage, dropouts or distortion. Optional English subtitles are available.
Flowers of Shanghai is gorgeous and stately, but it often comes off as a series of tableaux rather than as a compelling portrait of real human beings. The film's deliberately paced strategy may drive ADHD types a little batty (battier?), but in a way it helps to reinforce the strictures the women in this film experience. There are some passing oddities with the video that may distress some fans, but I found none of them to be a real deal breaker. Audio is fine, and the supplements are very interesting, per Criterion's standard operating procedure. Recommended.
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