Center Stage

The self-aware drama moves at the hypnotic pace of an elusive dream-above all, in spectacularly staged musical scenes, set in a night club, merging sinuous and languid dances with high-stakes emotional battles.

A biopic like no other.

If Center Stage represents the more difficult proposition, it confirms [Maggie Cheung's] status as one of Hong Kong's brightest and most beautiful stars.

Kwan's approach is so quiet, intimate and slow that the whole affair...feels like a lacquered-over still-life.

Always interesting if not always involving.

I am shocked that no resourceful docu-maker has taken on Ruan Lingyun as a subject I now want to know more about.

...Kwan's bold approach is something like analyzing a film in real time, his intertwining of feature scenes, interviews with actors and filmmakers...plus clips from what remains of her work enriching the experience.

One hopes that this new restoration of Center Stage reignites interest not just in the film, which is an absolute masterpiece in its own right, but in the life and career of Ruan Lingyu.

Few biopics have so eloquently interrogated the very foundations of the genre: our desire for intimacy with the stars and our sense of being entitled to knowledge of their personal lives.