Stanley Kwan Movies
Along with Wong Kar-Wai, Stanley Kwan is one of the most prominent directors of Hong Kong's Second Wave. In a national cinema known more for martial arts films than art films, Kwan has created some of Asia's most inventive and complex films of the 1980s and 1990s.Born in Hong Kong in 1957, Kwan landed a job at the television station TVB after receiving a mass communications degree at Baptist College, with the hopes of becoming an actor. That never panned out; instead Kwan learned filmmaking by serving as an assistant director during the early '80s, to some of the most prominent members of the nascent Hong Kong New Wave, including Ann Hui and Patrick Tam. His directorial debut, Women (1985), starring a pre-John Woo Chow Yun-Fat, was a big box-office success. In this film, as in much of his subsequent work, Kwan presented the audience with a sympathetic exploration of the plight of women, told in a stylistically inventive, often challenging manner. He followed Women with the ambitious Love Unto Waste (1986), which followed the lives of several emotionally damaged professionals. Though the film was a financial failure, it displayed his command of the medium and development of a mature style.
In 1987, Kwan released his masterpiece, Rouge, a gorgeous film about the spirit of a courtesan from the 1930s who returns to Hong Kong in 1987 to search for her lover. The movie proved to be one of Hong Kong's most internationally successful films, both critically and financially. Though the ghost story is a well-worn genre, Rouge used none of the dry-ice effects and flying somersaults conventional to these films. Instead, Kwan used an inventive double storyline to explore themes of identity, history, and narrative. After directing the cross-cultural drama Full Moon in New York, he radically reworked the biopic genre in The Actress (1992), a biography of Chinese silent movie icon Ruan Lingyu. This complex film blended fact and fiction, documentary and narrative; for example, Kwan edits footage of star Maggie Cheung playing Ruan with documentary footage of Maggie Cheung explaining how she researched the part. The result is a Brechtian interrogation of cinema itself. The film won several awards, including the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 1992 Berlin Film Festival. Kwan directed Red Rose White Rose, a characteristic drama about the suffering of women at the hands of men, and Yin & Yang: Gender in Chinese Cinema, a documentary on Chinese cinema for the British Film Institute. His Yue Kuaile, Yue Duoluo (1998) was screened at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival.
~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- 2008
This Taiwanese high school drama tells the story of a shy, Japanese student named Miao Miao, who has recently moved to Taiwan. Struggling to make friends in a new culture, she soon strikes up a bond with a boisterous girl named Xiao Ai - the seeming opposite of Miao Miao's introverted personality. But just as Xiao Ai's feelings seem to verge on more than mere friendship, Miao Miao finds herself falling head over heels for a pensive record shop owner named Chen Fei, who has his own reasons for keeping his feelings to himself. As time goes on, the truth about the threesome's desires rises to the surface, sending everyone into a tailspin of heartache and hope. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Stanley Kwan, one of Hong Kong's few openly gay filmmakers, directed this drama that blends a same-sex love story into a tableau of China's tumultuous recent history. In 1988, Lan Yu (Liu Ye) is a college student from rural China who has just arrived in Beijing, where he intends to pursue his studies -- and where he begins to acknowledge his sexual leanings. While visiting a gay bar, Lan Yu meets Handong (Hu Jan), a successful businessman whose father is an important Communist Party official. Handong finds Lan Yu attractive and they begin an affair, but while this marks Lan Yu's first significant relationship with another man, Handong thinks little of it and soon takes up with another handsome student. Lan Yu is crushed by Handong's infidelity and breaks off their relationship, but several months later, Handong discovers Lan Yu is one of the students demonstrating against the Communist leadership in Tiananmen Square. Worried after the student massacre by Chinese troops, Handong tracks down Lan Yu and discovers he survived the attack. Lan Yu and Handong soon pick up their relationship where they left off, but Handong is afraid that if his sexual orientation becomes public knowledge, it will ruin his business, so he breaks off with Lan Yu and marries a woman in a failed bid to become more "respectable." Lan Yu is based on a Chinese erotic novel known as Beijing Story, which circulated on the Internet with authorship credited to "Beijing Comrade." ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Hu Jun
- 2000
Renowned director Stanley Kwan spins this parable about post-handover Hong Kong, the second in a trilogy about the former colony that began with Hold You Tight (1998). Inspired from the 1998 "bird flu" that killed several people and prompted authorities to order the wholesale slaughter of that city's chickens, this film centers on seven disparate people trapped on an island because of a government quarantine. The film opens with Haruki (Takao Osawa), a Japanese writer suffering from consumption, trying to write his next novel. Other characters that populate the film include Sharon (Michele Reis), a lesbian Chinese-American businesswoman who lived on the island as a child, Sharon's married Japanese friend Marianne (Kaori Momoi), and party girl Mei Ling (played by former pin-up model Shu Qi), who came to the island to meet a Brit with whom she shacked up the night before. Also, there is young actor Han (Julian Cheung), hailing from Hong Kong, and Bo (Gordon Liu) the gay middle-aged manager of the island's hotel. After the aforementioned people cross paths, news comes that the government has stopped all traffic to and from the island for an indefinite period of time in order to prevent the spread of the "stone virus." As the long night wears on, the inhabitants have little to do except wait and talk. Soon they begin to reveal more and more of themselves. This film was screened at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Takao Osawa, Shu Qi, (more)
- 1999
- NR
The first film of Yu Lik Wai, this is the story of Ah Ying from Wunan in Mainland China, who arrives in Hong Kong with a tourist visa. She is called "Miss Big North," which means a prostitute from the mainland. During her initiation to the fast-moving, fast-living, materialistic world of Hong Kong, she meets three other immigrants from China who are as lost as she is. Quin, who used to be a social dance teacher, now works as an elevator operator in a big Chinese restaurant. She has lost her son and her leg in a traffic accident. Her live-in boyfriend, Ah Jian, is an old fashioned villain who works in a porno video rental shop that is about to close. Ah Chun, a shy man who believes in discipline, repairs elevators, and the only fun in his life is playing bad jokes on radio call-in shows and frequenting brothels. The lives of these four lost souls are somehow interconnected. The film tries to look at Hong Kong, the symbol of capitalism, through the eyes of immigrants from China; the title of the film is taken from a legendary song of the eighties sung by Joy Division. The film is produced by Tony Leung, a Hong Kong star of the music world as well as cinema, who is best remembered for his roles in the films of Tsui Hark, Hou Hsiao-hsien, John Woo, and Wong Kar-wai. In competition at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival, 1999. ~ Gönül Dönmez-Colin, Rovi
- Starring:
- Tony Leung Kar-Fai, Lu Liping, (more)
- 1998
Hong Kong helmer Stanley Kwan directed this study of sexual desire, featuring sexy Chingmy Yau (Naked Killer) in a dual role. Rosa Gao (Yau) loses her ticket at the airport, but a woman who resembles her boards the plane. Gay real-estate salesman Tong (Eric Tsang) puts the make on Fung-wai (Sunny Chan), distraught over the airplane-crash death of his wife Moon (Yau), the other woman seen at the airport. As the tale progresses, five characters of diverse persuasions are caught in sexual cross-currents. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival, this film is also known as Hold You Tight. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi
- Starring:
- Yau Chingmy, Sunny Chan, (more)
- 1996
This entry in the British Film Institute-sponsored international centenary celebration of cinema -- in which noted directors presented a film exemplifying their country or region's cinema and its origins -- represents China, or rather one aspect of the country's large body of work as seen through the eyes of Hong Kong filmmaker Stanley Kwan. Kwan uses the film as not only a means to examine the role of homosexuality and transgender issues in the films of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but also to look at the evolving roles of family and cultural attitudes in Chinese society. Kwan begins the film on a personal note by recounting a number of early and innocent encounters with men that led to his fascination and love of them. As a film-buff Kwan was fascinated by the almost exclusively male world of Hong Kong action cinema and by the almost homoerotic (in his opinion) bonds formed by the heroes. To further his theories, Kwan also cites the widespread use of swords, knives and other phallic symbols in the story. From there Kwan moves to films in which women portray men and men portray women (as in Farewell My Concubine), ending the film on a more personal note. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1994
In this sensitive Asian melodrama chronicles the two major loves in the life of a man who cannot change. The story is divided into two parts; each part focused upon one woman. The story begins in Shanghai during the early 1930's and follows the loves of Chen-pao. His early love life abroad is chronicled in the opening scenes. The real story begins as Chen-pao returns to Shanghai and stay at their friend Wang's apartment. Chen-pao meets Wang's moody, selfish wife Chiao-jui. The two begin a passionate affair. Chen-pao nicknames her "Red Rose." Chen-pao, who always likes to be in control, is tormented by his love affair. Red Rose rejoices in it. Soon she asks Wang for a divorce. This sends Chen-pao over the edge. He vows to start anew. Time passes. In the second half, Chen-pao is a businessman who woos and marries Yen-li, his "White Rose." She is from a peasant background and very young. She endeavors to be the perfect wife. More time passes. It is 1943 and Chen-pao is back to his old ways. This drives Yen-li to a breakdown. After she recovers, she too has an affair. Chen-pao encounters Red Rose on the street as the movie ends. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
- 1992
This 1992 film is not to be confused with a 1983 feature with the same phonetic Chinese title. In this story, a grim and duty-mad judge enacts a horrific revenge on his wife for having cuckolded him. A decade and more later, the judge's daughter is raped and her husband is killed while they are on their way to visit him. He investigates the crimes to the best of his ability and interviews his two best suspects, who somebody goes to the trouble of killing after they have testified before him. Eventually, the ghosts of the dead get involved in sorting the whole thing out and something approaching genuine justice is, for once, on the agenda. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- 1992
In the 1930s, in China, there was a woman film-actress who was tagged as "the Chinese Garbo." She was a wildly popular performer who made her first film at age 16 and died by her own hand at age 25. Ironically, she was famous for playing tragic heroines, and her own life mirrored the kinds of situations she portrayed onscreen. In this biopic, Ruan Ling-yu (Maggie Cheung) is riding high in her career when the press decides to take her down a notch or two, bitterly criticizing her for an affair with a married man. This situation is unbearable for her, and she kills herself, but not before uttering the words "Gossip is a terrible thing." In addition to the central drama, scenes from actual films starring the actress are included, and the actors in this biopic occasionally step out of character to address the camera, recounting some significant fact about the individuals whose lives they are playing, and the nature of those times in China. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Maggie Cheung
- 1989
In this drama, three Chinese women with vastly different backgrounds get acquainted and become friends amid the social desolation of New York. Chao Hong (Sichingowa) is from mainland China, and has come to marry a Chinese man with American citizenship. Aside from the difficulties of being newly married to a virtual stranger, she suffers from separation from her family and her homeland. Wang Hsiung Ping (Sylvia Chang) was an actress in Taiwan, and has come to New York to be with her American boyfriend. Now she has broken up with him, and is not at all certain what she wants to do. Li Feng Jiao (Maggie Cheung) is financially secure, as she owns a restaurant in the U.S. and has property in the U.S. and in Hong Kong - but she is too busy to have a romantic life. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Sylvia Chang, Maggie Cheung, (more)
- 1988
Hong Kong filmmaker Stanley Kwan directs this stunning supernatural melodrama about a passion, romance, and lost history. Fleur (Anita Mui) is a 1930s high-class courtesan who finds herself sucked into a doomed relationship with Twelfth Master Chan Chen-Pang (Leslie Cheung), the rakish scion of a prosperous business family that disapproves of their union. After a brief but intense courtship, the two resolve to be together in the afterworld by swallowing opium. Yet once there, Fleur discovers that she is alone. After waiting 50 years for her dearly beloved, she re-emerges in 1987 to place a personal ad. In the process, she enlists the aid of a pair of journalists: Yuen (Alex Man) and his feisty, occasionally jealous girlfriend Ah Chor (Emily Chu). Fleur learns that the Hong Kong she knew has by and large disappeared: the brothel where she worked was now a kindergarten. As she tells them of her love for Twelfth Master, the two journalists begin to find their relationship intensifying. As Fleur's spirit grows weaker, their search continues until it yields results that are both sad and ironic. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, (more)
- 1987
- R
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Jackie Chan takes a break from police thrillers featuring kung-fu and wild stunts to star and direct this action-adventure yarn featuring kung-fu and wild stunts. Chan plays Jackie, aka the Asian Hawk, an Indiana Jones-style adventurer looking to make a fortune finding exotic antiquities. After discovering a mysterious sword in Africa, a band of Satan-worshipping monks kidnap Jackie's ex-girlfriend Lorelei (Rosamund Kwan), demanding as ransom the sword and other pieces of the legendary Armour of God -- a reportedly magical outfit dating back to the Crusades. He manages to get the objects in question from wealthy collector Bannon (Bozidar Smiljanic), and together with Bannon's daughter May (Lola Forner) and, of course, Hong Kong rock star Alan (Alan Tam), the three head out to rescue Lorelei. When they do, they discover too late that she has been brainwashed. She drugs Alan, taking him and the armor back to the monastery. Jackie is forced to take on an army of satanic monks single-handedly. This film is perhaps best remembered as the shoot that almost killed Jackie Chan. While jumping from one tree to another, he slipped and plunged almost 40 feet landing on his head. True to hallowed Hong Kong tradition, that outtake along with dozens of others is included at the end of the film. This film was released in the States under the misleading title Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods, even though the supposed original Operation Condor was made four years afterwards. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jackie Chan, Alan Tam, (more)
- 1986
Billie (Irene Wan) is a beautiful model who falls for Tony (Tony Leung) in this engaging crime drama. The playboy son of a wealthy rice merchant, Tony has a penchant for nightclubs and drinking when his daily work with his father is complete. Jade Screen (Elaine Jin) is a starlet who comes home to find that her roommate, singer Jane (Tsai Chin), has been murdered. Sergeant Lau (Chop Yun Fat) is the methodical detective called in to unravel the twisted case. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irene Wan, Elaine Jin, (more)
- 1985
Not everyone would agree with the premise of this standard story of female bonding -- that divorced or single women are secretly longing for a male relationship -- but the camaraderie of the "Happy Spinsters Club" and the life of the heroine Liang Bo-yi (Cora Miao) are not as controversial. Bo-yi's husband is having an affair with another woman, and this is what propels her to ask for a divorce and join the "spinsters." Her marital woes are juggled with caring for her young son, maintaining an on-going relationship with her mother, and letting off steam with her friends. But is this the kind of life she really wants?
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Cora Miao, Chow Yun-Fat, (more)
- 1982
A landmark of the nascent Hong Kong New Wave of the early '80s, this melodrama -- directed by Ann Hui -- concerns the plight of Vietnamese peasants shortly after the fall of Saigon. The film centers on a Japanese photojournalist named Shiomi Akutagawa (George Lam Chi-cheung) who ventures to Danang to document Vietnam's attempts at rebuilding after the war. At first he's bussed around by government officials showing off quaint villages and happy, healthy children. Later, he manages to get permission to wander about the countryside without a government chaperon. Soon he happens upon a young lass named Cam Nuong (Season Ma Si-san) who is from a desperately poor family. At first she is suspicious and even hostile towards the foreigner but quickly they develop a bond of sorts. As Akutagawa starts seeing Vietnam through Cam Nuong's eyes, he starts to realize that everyday life is far different from the state propaganda. Villagers live in constant terror of marauding soldiers, and children scavenge the bodies of executed prisoners for valuables. This film, which was shot in Mainland China, garnered armloads of Hong Kong Film Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. This film also launched the career of future pop icon and movie star Andy Lau. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lam Chi-Cheung, Season Ma, (more)
- 1982
Ma (Tong Chung-yip) works as a taxi driver, as a collector for his father whose business is high-interest loans, and in his spare time, as a lifeguard. In that last role, he meets Kathy (Pat Ha), a wealthy woman, and romance blossoms. Meanwhile, Kathy's friend Louis (Leslie Chung) is also at the beach a lot and he meets a woman with the unlikely name of Tomato (Cecilia), and they develop a relationship. The two couples have various sexual encounters, and then some dastardly assassins from Japan arrive to snuff out Kathy because she has spurned the son of a major gangster. The sex and the violence are intended to make Hong Kong's beaches all that hotter, but the final judgment will have to rest with the viewers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leslie Cheung
- 1980
The demi-monde of Hong Kong drug lords and their connections is the focus of this police drama by Peter Yung. Detective Chan is a cop in the narcotics bureau who is out to break the back of the drug cartels in the city. Through his investigations, the notorious workings of the Chinese Triads are brought to light. With their influence reaching into the police force and government agencies, these gangsters are not going to be easily brought down by one determined detective-inspector. Suspense, action, and tragedy play out against the city streets, the whole enhanced by a kind of cinema-verite technique. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi
- Starring:
- Shek Kin, Chiao Chiao, (more)
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