These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. The years in which the young woman is sold as a concubine hovers around the edges of the story, out of focus, but dark enough to illuminate the shining moment in her life that's described. The story is a reworking of an Eileen Chang short story Aloeswood Incense and is Huis third Chang adaptation after Love in a Fallen City and Eighteen Springs.. , in that the heroine bends the expectations of the romance genre to her own desires. Love After LoveNot rated. She revealed progressive ideas shocking and unmentioned in Hong Kong society in the mid-20th century, such as factory girl Gu Manzhen being raped by her brothel manager brother-in-law in Eighteen Springs. Home life was turbulent, too: her parents divorced when she was ten due to her fathers opium addiction and use of prostitutes. Eileen Chang, James Schamus (Screenplay by), Wang Hui Ling (Screenplay by) 3.87 avg rating 67 ratings 6 editions. Either because Ma and Peng arent able to charismatically convey the interiority of their characters they seem to wildly swing from moment to moment, rather than embody whole, contradictory but nonetheless coherent individuals or because theres something missing in Huis conception of the film. 1013CN Amsterdam, Netherlands This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. Weilong, a Shanghainese schoolgirl, seeks for solace and secondary education in Hong Kong under the protection of her aunt Mrs Liang. All Rights Reserved. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. I wanted to express this unique set-up, rather than filming another fancy love story. Its a kind of fascinating failure, a beautiful film that just doesnt feel right in a way thats tough to pinpoint. The Festival is organised by La Biennale di Venezia and directed by, This years pandemic-altered Venice Film Festival will include a record number of competition films directed by women, festival organizers announced on Tuesday. It is largely left to the craft departments to give the film what dynamism it has. People therefore yearn for something tangible. http://fortissimofilms.com, PRESS OFFICE: Jane Yao - FORTISSIMO FILMS Sandra Ma and Eddie Peng in Love After Love, by Ann Hui. Writer: Lust, Caution. Despite a troubled relationship with her home country, Chang remains one of Chinas most celebrated literary figures of the 20th century, and this month marks both the 100th anniversary of her birth and 25 years since her death. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. Interactions between characters feel hollow, no matter how well-lit or well-cast the scenes are, with a passionless non-ending that has little of substance to say about the period or its social mors. As it happens, Weilong gets genuinely attracted . Image: Wikimedia Commons. I havent seen the latter, but Love in a Fallen City is one of my favorite of her films, a lush romantic drama that revels in the small moments and interplay between its charismatic stars Chow Yun-fat and Cora Miao, relegating most of the plot to conversational asides in an almost perverse manner. The film is Love After Love | , and it is based on a short story, "Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier," by acclaimed Second World War era writer Eileen Chang. This not-terribly-involving love story between two characters for whom its difficult to give a hoot, unfolds against a curiously texture-free backdrop, given the fascinating milieu of 1930s Hong Kong. When Taiwanese actor Janine Chang was writing her masters thesis in industrial economics in 2010, she likely never imagined that two Chinese characters in it would become a diplomatic flashpoint and threaten to derail her lucrative acting career more than a decade later. Author Eileen Changs life was as storiedand tragicas her novels, one of which hits the big screen this month. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Directed by Yoshida Kota, the film is described as a triptych about sex, aphrodisiac foods and secret desires. It is scheduled to be theatrically released in China on October 22, 2021. The modern reprints, along with Ang Lees Oscar-winning movie released the same year, brought Changs work to a new generation of readers and instilled fresh pride in the Chinese-speaking world towards one of its most respected literary voices. As Ann Hui's Love After Love premieres at the Venice International Film Festival, STYLE looks back at 5 more movies based on the timeless novels of Chinese writer Eileen Chang - from Ang Lee . What could make for a captivating story involving a transgressive love triangle is, even on a micro level, ineffective. In 1955, as the Cultural Revolution loomed in China, Chang was named a cultural traitor by the Communist Party and fled to the US as a refugee. +86 139 1687 0896 Ann Hui's Love After Love will play out of competition at the 2020 Venice Film Festival.It is an adaptation of an Eileen Chang short story, set in Hong Kong . Chang became pregnant, but decided to have an abortion after Reyher told her he did not want to have the child. +86 186 0213 1373 The great-granddaughter of Li Hongzhang, an influential Qing Dynasty court official, Chang was born in Shanghai in 1920 and received a western-style education at St Marys Hall school, where she would write stories for the schools annual magazine. Having inherited all his wealth, she lives a decadent life of supremely well-dressed un-respectability, as indicated when were introduced to her rocking a black satin number and waist-length veil as shes driven home from an assignation in a shiny convertible by much younger playboy George Chiao (Peng). This film is a sufficient showcase for Huis craftsmanship, but it lacks the emotional depth or resonance that its composed visuals, lofty setting, and melodramatic stakes would portend. An ornate treasure box with a snake inside, but a snake that turns out to be a favorite pet. email info@labiennale.org, Press Office info and contact persons: It has so much going for it that the credit list alone will sell tickets. Read on for more information about the film, plus where you can get a ticket. Jonathan Majors Dropped by Manager Entertainment 360 Following Domestic Violence Charges, AI-Generated Fake Drake/Weeknd Collaboration, Heart on My Sleeve, Delights Fans and Sets Off Industry Alarm, Beef Star David Choe Appears to File Copyright Takedowns for 2014 Podcast Video of Him Joking Hes A Successful Rapist, Bruce Springsteen Contracts COVID and Misses His Archives Inaugural Awards Show, but Presents Via Video. With a wistful piano score by Ryuichi Sakamoto accompanying Christopher Doyle's ravishing images, Love After Love charts a dangerous liaison that slinks between lust and caution. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. However, it wasnt unique. This round has the r, Another Friday, another #InROWeekly. We need to be able to step outside Weilongs perspective, but instead were trapped with her, and since shes never sure what shes feeling or what if anything to do about it, we remain just as lost as she is. Eileen Chang is the English name for Chinese author , who was born to a prominent family in Shanghai (one of her great-grandfathers was Li Hongzhang) in 1920. PRODUCTION 1: Jerry Li - Shanghai Alibaba Pictures Co., Ltd In design, the film is impeccable: gorgeous images (DP Christopher Doyle, working with Hui for the first time, which is unbelievable but true) of gorgeous settings and costumes (by legendary costume designer, the late Emi Wada) peopled by gorgeous actors. These experiences and their resulting emotional scarring instilled a cynicism in Chang and fuelled the semi-autobiographical Little Reunions, which features an abortion scene that was strikingly graphic for its time. Ca Giustinian, San Marco 1364/A, Venice. Although Chang's somber love stories are widely recognized, her construction of an alternative wartime narrative is considered a significant contribution to Chinese literature. She is met by two pert housemaids Didi (Karlina Zhang) and Nier (Ning Chang), but it belongs to Madame Liang (Faye Yu), her fathers sister who was excommunicated from the family when she chose to become the mistress of a wealthy Hong Kong businessman rather than marry the man her family chose for her. Chang was Hus fourth of five wives, and his affair with a 17-year-old nurse shortly after he married Chang led to their divorce in 1947. Van Diemenstraat 134 Love After Love is the third film Hui has adapted from works by Chang, after Love in a Fallen City (1984) and Eighteen Springs (1997). Sandra Ma (Soulmate) plays a young girl who falls into her aunt's game of luring rich men, with Eddie Peng (Our Time Will Come) co-starring. Eileen Chang [Zhang Ailing ] was born into a large Shanghai family in 1920 and died alone in Los Angeles in 1995. Wada Emi, the celebrated Japanese costume designer who won an Oscar for Kurosawa Akiras , "It makes me happy to help folks out a little.". Watch Trailer. Art, Architecture / Cinema / Dance, Music, Theatre Books by the revered Chinese writer had already served as inspiration for Huis 1984, What follows is a sumptuously mounted love triangle, and a faithful exhumation of pre-war Hong Kong. While this all works in theory and feeling, and theres definitely an attractive vibe to Love After Love, it doesnt really work as drama. 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It does not store any personal data. Tel. And I did, sort of. Love After Love Review: Elegance Without a Center, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/17/movies/love-after-love-review.html. Subscribe to the Newsletter and get the latest info on our programmes and initiatives. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Eileen Chang, also known as Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing (September 30, 1920 - September 8, 1995), was a Chinese essayist, novelist, and screenwriter. However, the erotic spy thrillers graphic sex scenes between lead actors Tang Wei and Tony Leung drew controversy in China, where critics argued the film sensationalised the 1979 novella by Eileen Chang that inspired Lees adaptation, tarnishing one of Chinas best-loved authors. The film marked the third time Hui directed . 201611 - Shanghai,China She thoroughly portrayed a persons psychology in an elegant and layered manner as if she were dissecting a person in an experiment in the lab. Designed & Developed by Solo Pine. But her socialite custodian has other plans for her: the teenager would become yet another valuable asset to be pawned to rich men. "Love After Love" is Hui's 30th film, and an adaptation of a short story by the novelist Eileen Chang, whose fiction she has now . These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. There are eight months and many more movies coming out this year. Her life is mirrored in her oeuvre., See also: Tatler Reading List: 10BooksAbout Hong Kong By Hongkongers. I love this novel because its a brutal story about a mixed-up, hypocritical milieu in Hong Kong shortly before the Second World War. There, she met her second husband, the American scriptwriter Ferdinand Reyher, in a New Hampshire artists colony. There she lives with her long relative, Aunt Liang who used to live in splendor and extravagance. Adapted from Eileen Chang's short story, Ge Weilong, a young girl from Shanghai pursuing her education in Hong Kong, pays for her studies with her aunt Mrs. Liang's help. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. China. The film had its world premiere at the 77th Venice International Film Festival on September 8, 2020. Once more with rather less feeling: after Love in a Fallen City and Eighteen Springs, acclaimed Hong Kong director Ann Hui returns to the work of celebrated 20th century author Eileen Chang with Love After Love, a not-at-all-short adaptation of a Chang short story laboring under the English title Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier. Hui has assembled something of an all-star lineup, with the young leads played by rising actors Sandra Ma (Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings, The Shadow Play) and Eddie Peng (Operation Mekong, Hidden Man), the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto on scoring duties and DP Christopher Doyle returning to the scene, if not quite the time period, of his greatest Wong Kar-wai collaboration, In the Mood For Love. Despite all this promise, third time sadly represents a marked drop-off in charm: Love After Love goes through the motions of classic, rousing melodrama but not the emotions. 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