Flowers of Shanghai (Hai shang hua) (1998)

89% of critics liked it
(9 reviews)
76% of users liked it
(2,065 ratings)

Shanghai, the 1880s, four elegant brothels (flower houses): each has an auntie (the madam), a courtesan in her prime, older servants, and maturing girls in training. The men gather around tables of food, playing drinking games. An opium pipe is at hand. The women live within dark-paneled walls. The… More Shanghai, the 1880s, four elegant brothels (flower houses): each has an auntie (the madam), a courtesan in her prime, older servants, and maturing girls in training. The men gather around tables of food, playing drinking games. An opium pipe is at hand. The women live within dark-paneled walls. The atmosphere is stifling, as if Chekov was in China. The melancholy Wang is Crimson's patron; will he leave her for the younger Jasmin? Emerald schemes to buy her freedom, aided by Luo, a patron. Pearl, an aging flower, schools the willful Jade, who thinks she has a marriage agreement with young master Zhu. Is she dreaming? Women fade, or connive, or despair.

Play Trailer

Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 2 hr.
Directed By: Hsiao-hsien Hou
Written By: Tien-Wen Chu
Genres: Drama, Action & Adventure, Art House & International

In Theaters: Nov 1, 1998 Wide
On DVD: Aug 14, 2001
Studio: Wellspring Media Inc.

Critic Reviews

Rob Nelson, City Pages, Minneapolis/St. Paul
Flowers of Shanghai is a beautiful, tantalizingly oblique, and thoroughly hypnotic film, a work so sensual that one can nearly smell the perfume wafting from the screen.
Nick Schager, Lessons of Darkness
Sympathetically depicts ... consuming, love-sick ennui.
Jeffrey Overstreet, Looking Closer
Each scene of Flowers is like an exquisite and decorous mural, worth studying.
Marta Barber, Miami Herald
It's beautiful to look at, but you must have patience to enjoy it.
Jeremy Heilman, MovieMartyr.com
It probably isn't Hou's best film, but perhaps it is his prettiest.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Hou's a gifted director, as even his poorer films are quite good.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
Contains an artistry, beauty, restraint, and patience that perhaps only Stanley Kubrick, Max Ophuls, or Kenji Mizoguchi possessed.

Read all 7 critic reviews

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Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

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Featured Audience Ratings

Bob S

Multiple viewings in a theater setting MIGHT get this more stars. ... could also induce suicide.
Stella D

moving very slowly from one blackout scene to the next, beautifully shot in the candlelit rooms of various brothels of the 19th century, flowers of shanghai explores the intrigues of 'flower girls' or courtesans, sold as children into a life little better than slavery.… More
moving very slowly from one blackout scene to the next, beautifully shot in the candlelit rooms of various brothels of the 19th century, flowers of shanghai explores the intrigues of 'flower girls' or courtesans, sold as children into a life little better than slavery. there's alot of drinking, gambling and opium smoking and the film requires a good deal of patience. i probably need to watch it again as i felt as though i had smoked opium myself afterward
Krystle C

Hou Hsiao Hsien's play-like story of a famed brothel (Flower House) in Shanghai is a study of manners in late 19-century China. Sublimely restrained in parts, the opening sequences introducing each courtesan (flower girl) is exquisite and captivating... but I have to admit that I… More
Hou Hsiao Hsien's play-like story of a famed brothel (Flower House) in Shanghai is a study of manners in late 19-century China. Sublimely restrained in parts, the opening sequences introducing each courtesan (flower girl) is exquisite and captivating... but I have to admit that I fell asleep in parts and it is pretty slow. The dubbing of Crimson's character also bothered me a fair bit. I loved Pearl and Emerald though, and I wish we could have seen more of Carina Lau's lovely, calm performance of the daughter of the house. Michelle Reis is great fun as the brash, arrogant, independent courtesan, so different from the other meek girls. Too many drinking game scenes! Beautiful score though, and Tony Leung is good although not spectacular. However, I did really love how Flowers... felt like a play in the theatre, from its fades in and out to its static mise-en-scene, but incorporated some great close-up shots of Crimson and Wang sitting quietly, etc. Worth another watch, but not anytime soon.