Libramedi Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

klauskind Prostitution has been a popular trade in the movies. It could be about glamorous courtesans in chic apartments for the rich or miserable young women in dingy hotel rooms for the low wages of the poor, some kind of bordello or simply that most elliptical dishonour, the heroine with a dirty past. Sometimes the girls got married, sometimes they remained alone or died but they were usually entitled to a sublimated love scene with their lovers, if not their customers, and when morals changed they could be obliging enough to have sex with both lovers and customers.Hou Hsiao-hsien makes this film as if it belonged in some old time that maybe never existed. Flowers of Shanghai is a film about glamorous brothel-bound prostitutes without a single sex scene but it shows or tells everything else, which provides it with a surreal intimacy.That intimacy is reinforced by the fact that there are no exterior scenes and by the gripping warmth of its colour palette. That warmth invites you into the movie's visual environment to share in the cruel melancholy of the stories, the domestic routines through which they unfold and in some unexpected comic episodes: an attentive camera that pans and zooms attests to a regimented fate for the characters it watches, carefully staged vignettes shot in distant takes feel like vivid scenes spied on through a keyhole or behind a curtain and in some cases the dramatic expectations about the characters are ironically upended.There's a great article on the movie in the external reviews section. The author is in awe of what he writes about. It lingers on Hou's camera movements and framing and gives a detailed account of what makes this movie intoxicating. But it's in Portuguese, so stop reading this and learn the language!

Balthazar-5 I saw this film at Cannes where delegates, including would-be intelligent critics emerged from the film scratching their heads and mumbling 'interesting' - a sure sign that they couldn't understand a word of it. For me it had been an epiphanous experience.Six months later Cahiers du Cinema voted it the best film of its year...I am sure there is a word to describe the effect of the film, but I can't lay my hand on it, so I will say 'emotionally disjoint'. As the men sit around playing Mah Jong talking, generally of trivia, huge emotional dramas are going on, but obliquely, in relation to the girls in the brothel. The effect is crushing. I thought, while watching, mainly of Jean-Marie Straub as it has a minimalist side, but with such greater emotional power and resonance. It is so tragic that this magnificent film has had such a poor release in the west - no theatrical distribution at all in the UK...

psteier Done in a very formal and elliptic style, with long shots from a single camera and without crosscutting. All the scenes are in rooms of a few Flower Houses (where the women live and sometimes meet their customers) and in a tea house, where the customers eat and drink and call in Flower Girls for entertainment and company.What action there is centers around the women trying to keep their customers coming, to marry the customer (the preferred way out of the business), or to attract the customers from other women. A bit of economics is thrown in for good measure.I could not get interested in the plot or the characters. Though the costumes and sets are well done, they are not worth two hours.

bedazzle Perhaps this movie was moving and insightful, I wouldn't know because I was bored out of my mind. That is quite an accomplishment for a movie with subtitles because usually there is so much going on with both watching and reading at the same time - not in this case. I'd quickly read the subtitles, nothing, watch the movie, nothing. This is one of those foreign movies that people like for the sole virtue that it is foreign. That's not good enough for me.