Rouge (1987)

Year: 1987 Director: Stanley Kwan Runtime: 97 minutes Country: Hong Kong Language: Cantonese with English and Chinese subtitles Rating: NC16 4K RESTORATION Awards BEST LEADING ACTRESS (Anita Mui) BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY BEST ART DIRECTION Golden Horse Film Festival 1987 BEST PICTURE BEST DIRECTOR BEST ACTRESS (Anita Mui) BEST FILM EDITING BEST ORIGINAL FILM SONG BEST ORIGINAL FILM SCORE Hong Kong Film Awards 1989 Synopsis Oscillating between past and present, tradition and modernity, Rouge delivers an erotic and poignant romance between two star-crossed lovers in 1930s and 1980s Hong Kong. Driven to commit suicide together, elegant courtesan Fleur (Anita Mui) and young magnate Chan (Leslie Cheung) promise to reunite in the afterlife. After waiting for him in limbo for fifty years, she returns to the living as a ghost in search of her long-lost lover, only to find her home and cultural mores uprooted in an alien contemporary world which she navigates with the help of a newspaperman and his girlfriend. Where the opulent teahouses of pre-war Hong Kong are replaced with bland modern apartments, Fleur’s pursuit for love may be as elusive as time itself. From his directorial debut Women (1985) to Rouge (1987), auteur Stanley Kwan is celebrated for his nuanced treatment of women in his films, especially characters confronted by urban alienation, sexual suppression and identity struggles within Hong Kong’s rapidly changing social milieu.