The Cinematheque

“The escapism, so carefully crafted and self-aware that it becomes an analysis of escapism, has a cruel aftertaste … sweetened by a constant sentimental undertone.”

Geoffrey O’Brien, New York Review of Books

A synthesis of both his provocative streak and his desire to capture Hong Kong’s popular imagination, this personal favourite of director Tsui Hark is the first film produced under the independent banner of his Film Workshop. Shanghai Blues is whip-smart and full of screwball staging, traversing bed-swapping romance, the near-apocalypse of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and a nostalgic yet heavily ironic treatment of the entertainment industry. Shu-Shu (Sylvia Chang) is a nightclub performer. Each evening’s return to her shabby apartment brings her closer to neighbours Tung (Kenny Bee), a violinist, and Stool (Sally Yeh), a naive schoolteacher whose education in Shanghai’s thieves, casting agents, and other grifters complicates, as if by fate, their lives. Tsui understands that for characters on an economic precipice, life moves at an accelerated pace: the war is elided in a cut, and fortunes change wildly in a single day. This restoration, slightly edited and with a multi-language dub, premiered at Cannes Classics 2024.

In Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese with English subtitles

“This is Shanghai recast as teeming, cutthroat Hong Kong, with everyone trying to break into show business … Tsui suggests that by reviving older traditions you don’t simply indulge in nostalgia; you link your life to a vital heritage.”

David Bordwell, Planet Hong Kong