Flowers of Shanghai

Flowers of Shanghai places the viewer inside the lives of the Flower Girls of Shanghai in the later 19th century. The Flower girls live in a brothel each having their own house. They all are owned by the brothel, the girls are bought when they are very young around 7 years old. They are brought up in the brothel until they are old enough to work, then eventually their freedom is bought by one of their clients if all goes well. The brothel mainly is a place where men go to smoke opium and drink tea, it is not really like I had imagined it to be at first. I figured it would just be a place where men would go for prostitution other similar things. However there is much bonding and respect between the men themselves.

There is a lot of drama in the flower houses. Emerald is in the process of buying her freedom with help from her client Master Lou, Jade is being lead on by a client who tells her that she will be his first wife, only to later realize that he is currently engaged, and Master Wang has been seeing Crimson for a long time when he hears news that she is seeing another man he has a fit and trashes the room. He then marries Jasmine almost immediately. The story goes on and there are many parties with the men and the flower girls where the men play games and socialize while smoking opium and drinking.

Eventually, Emerald is able to buy her freedom with help from Master Lou. Master Wang ironically finds out that Jasmine has been unfaithful to him so he beats her and abandons her, putting him right back where he started. When Jade finds out the situation with the man who is promising her marriage, she goes overboard and tries to poison him along with herself. This plan however fails when he does not drink enough of the poison to die. The ironic thing about this is that earlier in their relationship when he has asked her to marry him he said "if we can not be together, we will die together." Realizing that them being together is no longer a possibility Jade goes for the death portion of his promise but does not succeed. A solution is met to help Jade by spending 5000 on her freedom and another 5000 on her dowry. At last the film closes with Master Wang and Crimson together and reunited.

The film seems very dark to me I understand that the film takes place mainly in one place, but the lighting looks very artificial almost as if the film is being shot in a dark room. Everything has a red glow to it. Visually this was a very boring film seeming like the entire film was just one giant scene. There was seldom a change in scenery and even when there was it was very similar to the previous scene. It was slow moving and very boring. This film may be a great film, but I just didn't see what was so great about it. I'm not trying to bash the film, I just didn't feel like i could really connect and get into the film like I was able to do with other films we have watched through out this course.