The Cinematheque

“Tsui’s masterpiece … Unequaled passages of brilliantly choreographed and witty fast action.”

David Chute, Film Comment

Perhaps no other film better displays the blink-and-you-miss-it inventiveness of Tsui Hark than Peking Opera Blues. It isn’t just one of the greatest Hong Kong action movies of all time, or merely an exquisite combination of political history and gender-defying performance. Tsui’s enthralling balance of tone, editing patterns, and comedic role-playing means the film is all of these things at warp speed, a dazzling expression of genre multiplicity that shifts between modes moment to moment. This flexibility extends to the cast: three women (Brigitte Lin, Sally Yeh, and Cherie Chung), a spy, an actor, and a musician, are assuming roles to survive the violent end of the Qing Dynasty, aligning themselves with warlords, revolutionaries, seducers, and friends. Each identity opens up traps, expectations, and freedoms. Whether on the stage or in a melee, this is a film that plays out under a ruthless and overwhelming urge to execute the perfect stunt—both for laughs and for something deadly serious.

In Cantonese with English subtitles

“[Tsui’s] best … A constantly evolving game of concealment, evasion, and disguise, in which trysts, cabals, masquerades, and police raids become inextricably entangled with theatrical illusion.”

Geoffrey O’Brien, New York Review of Books

“As in A Touch of Zen, an outlandish premise is subjected to a rousing exactitude of execution.”

David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong