# Flowers of Shanghai (海上花)
**Flowers of Shanghai** (海上花) is a 1998 Taiwanese period drama directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, adapted from the late Qing novel *[The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-sing-song-girls-of-shanghai)* (海上花列傳) by [Han Bangqing](https://www.edgepedia.org/han-bangqing) through [Eileen Chang](https://www.edgepedia.org/eileen-chang)'s Mandarin translation. Set in the elite "long san" flower houses (courtesan houses) of Shanghai's British Concession in the late nineteenth century, it is composed almost entirely of long takes lit by oil lamps and candles, and it competed at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival before winning the Golden Horse Jury Grand Prize.[1](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai) • [2](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff2010/hkaff_brochure.pdf)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / screenwriter | Hou Hsiao-hsien; screenplay by Chu Tien-wen, adapted from Han Bangqing's *Hai shang hua lie zhuan* as translated and annotated by Eileen Chang[1](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai) |
| Release | Taiwan, 1998; 35mm, color, 113 minutes; dialogue in Shanghainese and Cantonese[3](https://storage.googleapis.com/tghff_outland/download/programme/2009/2009FF.pdf) |
| Principal cast | Tony Leung Chiu-wai (Master Wang), Michiko Hada (Crimson), Michelle Reis (Emerald), Carina Lau (Pearl), Annie Yi, Jack Kao[1](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai) • [4](https://www.dianying.com/ft/title/hsh1998) |
| Key crew | Cinematography Mark Lee Ping-Bing; editing and producing Liao Ching-song; sound Tu Du-che; music Yoshihiro Hanno; art direction Huang Wen-ying[3](https://storage.googleapis.com/tghff_outland/download/programme/2009/2009FF.pdf) |
| Form | Every scene except one is a single uninterrupted take; the opening shot runs about seven minutes[5](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/80275/flowers-of-shanghai) |
| Festival record | In competition for the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1998; Golden Horse Jury Grand Prize; Asia-Pacific Film Festival awards for best director and best art direction[6](https://www.mplus.org.hk/tc/cinema/lightcatcher-the-cinematography-of-mark-lee-ping-bing/flowers-of-shanghai/) • [2](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff2010/hkaff_brochure.pdf) |
| Restoration | 4K restoration premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival on June 15, 2019[7](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0621/c404063-31171806.html) |
## Spoilers
### Story and cast
The film condenses the novel's world into an introductory intertitle placing the story in the British Concession, where the most elite flower houses stood.[9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7395-flowers-of-shanghai-inside-the-dream) Its main plot strand follows the bureaucrat Wang ([Tony Leung Chiu-wai](https://www.edgepedia.org/tony-leung-chiu-wai)), who breaks angrily with his longtime mistress Crimson (Michiko Hada) after catching her with another lover; a subplot shows a cynical girl and a veteran roué conspiring to profit from covering up an attempted double suicide.[5](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/80275/flowers-of-shanghai) Around them, the courtesans each scheme with their patrons: Emerald ([Michelle Reis](https://www.edgepedia.org/michelle-reis)) maneuvers so that her wealthiest client will buy back her freedom, while Pearl ([Carina Lau](https://www.edgepedia.org/carina-lau)), the most independent-minded of the women, takes the lead in resolving conflicts and counseling others.[16](https://tv.apple.com/tw/movie/%E6%B5%B7%E4%B8%8A%E8%8A%B1/umc.cmc.2hdl6ljztyf1n74qms3v1umqg) • [15](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2012/cteq/what-is-said-and-left-unsaid-in-hou-hsiao-hsiens-flowers-of-shanghai/) The cast also includes Jack Kao, Rebecca Pan as Auntie Huang, Vicky Wei, and Hsuan Fang.[17](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/flowers-of-shanghai/)
## From a canceled project to the novel
Hou Hsiao-hsien did not set out to film *Hai shang hua lie zhuan*. In the early 1990s the city of Hirado, Japan, where Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) was born, invited him to make a film about Zheng Chenggong to promote tourism. While Hou had researchers, including the writer Zhong Acheng, work out the period background, he wanted to understand why late Qing literati visited the courtesan houses of the Qinhuai district in Nanjing, where the young Zheng had studied. His screenwriter [Chu Tien-wen](https://www.edgepedia.org/chu-tien-wen) pointed him to Eileen Chang's translation of *Hai shang hua lie zhuan*. Hou said he loved the book at first reading, for an ecology and dialogue that felt as if the author stood beside the reader. The Zheng Chenggong script was completed but never filmed, because the mayor of Hirado died, and Hou turned his attention fully to *Flowers of Shanghai*.[8](https://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/film/about/archive/related/861)
The source novel itself had an unusual afterlife. Han Bangqing (韓邦慶, 1856–1894) wrote it in Suzhou vernacular (Wu dialect); the scholar Hu Shi called it a foundational work of Wu-language literature, and Eileen Chang, who had loved it since childhood, spent eighteen years translating it into Mandarin while living in the United States, and worked on an English translation until her death in 1995.[7](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0621/c404063-31171806.html) • [9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7395-flowers-of-shanghai-inside-the-dream) The novel is regarded as the first vernacular novel set entirely in the high-grade courtesan houses of the Shanghai concessions, and its reputation has rested less on general readers than on other writers and filmmakers.[10](https://tci.ncl.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/gsweb.cgi?o=dnclresource&s=id%3D%22092FJU00617003%22.&searchmode=basic&tcihsspage=tcisearch_opt1_search) • [9](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7395-flowers-of-shanghai-inside-the-dream)
## Production
The film was planned as a Shanghai production, but because of difficulties obtaining permission to film in mainland China it had to be completed indoors in Taiwan.[11](https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/download/Featured%20Authors/dai_jinhua/Hou-Hsiao-Hsien-s-films-pursuing-and-escaping-history.pdf) Producer and editor Liao Ching-song, invited by Hou after earlier producing experience, described the heavier than usual preparatory work that came with an international crew: meetings with actors to schedule their scenes, several location-scouting trips to Shanghai, and the decision to build the sets in Yangmei, Taiwan, with two full containers of props shipped in from China to dress them.[12](https://tcmb.culture.tw/zh-tw/detail?id=651745&indexCode=Culture_Media)
The result is a film shot entirely in the studio, set in four flower houses clustered in the British Concession of late Qing Shanghai.[5](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/80275/flowers-of-shanghai) The Guardian's critic Tony Rayns noted that these houses drew civil servants who were prohibited from visiting brothels in the Chinese-administered areas of the city, and that since most of these men had been married off young, they came less for sex than for the pleasures of courtship and romance.[5](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/80275/flowers-of-shanghai)
## Style
**Long takes and lamplight.** With one crucial exception, each scene is a single uninterrupted take, and the camera generally pans slowly left and then right across the candle-lit interiors, a device the International Film Festival Rotterdam described as communicating the distorted sense of time that ruled inside the flower houses.[5](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/80275/flowers-of-shanghai) • [13](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1999/films/flowers-of-shanghai) The opening shot, a dinner-table scene, runs about seven minutes.[14](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/flowers_of_shanghai) Cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bing worked with the enclosed feel of the studio sets and lit the film only with kerosene lamps and Western candles, producing an amber-toned image that M+'s program notes compare to a flowing oil painting with a sense of decadent beauty.[6](https://www.mplus.org.hk/tc/cinema/lightcatcher-the-cinematography-of-mark-lee-ping-bing/flowers-of-shanghai/) The Golden Horse festival program notes credit Hou and Lee with using shifts of lamplight to join shot to shot in place of conventional fades, a broken, staggered technique the notes read as a metaphor for the intermittent, fleeting love affairs between the courtesans and their clients.[3](https://storage.googleapis.com/tghff_outland/download/programme/2009/2009FF.pdf)
The film also breaks with Hou's earlier work in setting and language. It was his first film set outside Taiwan, and the dialogue is largely in [Shanghainese](https://www.edgepedia.org/shanghainese), with [Cantonese](https://www.edgepedia.org/cantonese) from the Hong Kong members of the cast.[6](https://www.mplus.org.hk/tc/cinema/lightcatcher-the-cinematography-of-mark-lee-ping-bing/flowers-of-shanghai/) • [4](https://www.dianying.com/ft/title/hsh1998) Critics have noted that it does not follow the conventions of gradual narrative unfolding, varies its sets little, and does not clearly distinguish its characters from one another, so that much of the dramatic action stays offscreen.[15](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2012/cteq/what-is-said-and-left-unsaid-in-hou-hsiao-hsiens-flowers-of-shanghai/) • [1](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai)
## Reception and restoration
The film premiered in competition at Cannes in 1998 and later received the Golden Horse Jury Grand Prize in Taiwan, along with best director and best art direction awards at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival.[2](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff2010/hkaff_brochure.pdf) • [6](https://www.mplus.org.hk/tc/cinema/lightcatcher-the-cinematography-of-mark-lee-ping-bing/flowers-of-shanghai/) It was named one of [Cahiers du Cinéma](https://www.edgepedia.org/cahiers-du-cinema)'s ten films of the year for 1998.[1](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai) Anglophone critics have generally been favorable: it holds a 93% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 reviews and a Metascore of 73 on Metacritic from 11 critics, with the [Chicago Tribune](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-tribune) praising it as a ravishing portrait of late nineteenth-century Shanghai brothel life shot entirely in one-take scenes.[14](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/flowers_of_shanghai) • [17](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/flowers-of-shanghai/)
Twenty years after release, a 4K restoration returned the film to theaters, premiering at the Shanghai International Film Festival on June 15, 2019, and opening in Taiwanese cinemas that December; editor Liao Ching-song marked the anniversary by explaining that the film's classic aesthetic drew on the breath and rhythm of [Tang dynasty](https://www.edgepedia.org/tang-dynasty) seven-character quatrains.[7](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0621/c404063-31171806.html) • [18](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/amov/201912050138.aspx) The restoration has since circulated at festivals and on home video, and the film is now regularly grouped with *The Puppetmaster* and *The Assassin* as a high point of Hou's elliptical, long-take style.[1](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai)
## References
1. [Flowers of Shanghai (4K Restoration), Taiwan Film Festival in Australia](https://www.taiwanfilmfestival.org.au/2025-programs/flower-of-shanghai)
2. [Hong Kong Asian Film Festival 2010 brochure (award and Cannes records)](https://bc.cinema.com.hk/adhoc/hkaff2010/hkaff_brochure.pdf)
3. [Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival program notes, Flowers of Shanghai (2009 archive PDF)](https://storage.googleapis.com/tghff_outland/download/programme/2009/2009FF.pdf)
4. [海上花 (1998), 電影資料庫 dianying.com](https://www.dianying.com/ft/title/hsh1998)
5. [Tony Rayns, "Flowers of Shanghai (Hai Shang Hua)" review, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/movie/80275/flowers-of-shanghai)
6. [海上花 Flowers of Shanghai, M+ Cinema program notes](https://www.mplus.org.hk/tc/cinema/lightcatcher-the-cinematography-of-mark-lee-ping-bing/flowers-of-shanghai/)
7. [近代对《海上花列传》的两次发现, 中国作家网 (2019)](https://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2019/0621/c404063-31171806.html)
8. [大師講堂：侯孝賢談《海上花》, 台北金馬影展](https://www.goldenhorse.org.tw/film/about/archive/related/861)
9. [Jean Ma, "Flowers of Shanghai: Inside the Dream," The Criterion Collection (2021)](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7395-flowers-of-shanghai-inside-the-dream)
10. [現代性與情色烏托邦：韓邦慶《海上花列傳》研究, 臺灣人文及社會科學引文索引資料庫](https://tci.ncl.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/gsweb.cgi?o=dnclresource&s=id%3D%22092FJU00617003%22.&searchmode=basic&tcihsspage=tcisearch_opt1_search)
11. [Dai Jinhua, "Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Films: Pursuing and Escaping History"](https://our-global-u.org/oguorg/en/download/Featured%20Authors/dai_jinhua/Hou-Hsiao-Hsien-s-films-pursuing-and-escaping-history.pdf)
12. [廖慶松談擔任《海上花》製片, 國家文化記憶庫](https://tcmb.culture.tw/zh-tw/detail?id=651745&indexCode=Culture_Media)
13. [Flowers of Shanghai, International Film Festival Rotterdam 1999](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/1999/films/flowers-of-shanghai)
14. [Flowers of Shanghai, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/flowers_of_shanghai)
15. ["What is Said and Left Unsaid in Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flowers of Shanghai," Senses of Cinema](https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2012/cteq/what-is-said-and-left-unsaid-in-hou-hsiao-hsiens-flowers-of-shanghai/)
16. [《海上花》, Apple TV](https://tv.apple.com/tw/movie/%E6%B5%B7%E4%B8%8A%E8%8A%B1/umc.cmc.2hdl6ljztyf1n74qms3v1umqg)
17. [Flowers of Shanghai, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/flowers-of-shanghai/)
18. [廖慶松以唐詩氣韻為《海上花》打造經典美學, 中央社 (2019)](https://www.cna.com.tw/news/amov/201912050138.aspx)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films late 1990s › Released 1995 to 1998*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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