September 15 - September 29
As Tears Go By: The Films of Maggie Cheung
As her mantle heaves under the weight of Best Actress awards from festivals around the world, Maggie Cheung (1964-) goes quietly about her business of creating memorable, timeless characters infused with a subtle yet intoxicating sexuality & profound melancholy.
Cheung was born in Hong Kong but moved to England with her family 8 years later. After high school she returned to her birthplace to successfully pursue a career in modeling, a pursuit that landed her a runner-up place in the 1983 Miss Hong Kong contest. She was noticed by local comedy directors & her acting career was set in motion.
This retrospective covers the triumphant middle section of Cheung’s career, a peak that coincided with the full flowering of pre-handover Hong Kong cinema. It focuses on the period after she shrugged off the shackles of her comic & damsel-in-distress typecasting and began to make films which challenged both the actor & her audience. Wong Kar-wai was the first to recognise her potential as a “serious” actress when he cast her in As Tears Go By (1988), & this season includes two of the key titles from the pair’s triumphant collaborative history; the enigmatic love story In the Mood for Love, & the astonishing fantasy, Ashes of Time Redux. In addition it features two striking films about acting-as-craft & the facade of stardom – Stanley Kwan’s Centre Stage, for many the crowning achievement of her career, & Irma Vep, Olivier Assayas’ love letter to the cinemas of France & Hong Kong. This three-week season is designed to showcase the actor’s skill and versatility & illustrate her canny choices of significant collaborators.
7:00 - CENTRE STAGE
Stanley Kwan (1992) 154 mins
Kwan’s magisterial & deeply moving account of the tragic life, loves & career of ’30s Chinese silent movie star Ruan Lingyu (“the Chinese Garbo”) is one of the most sophisticated & beautifully rendered films of ’90s Hong Kong cinema. Providing a fascinating portrait of pre-communist China, the film explores this time & place’s complex relationship to contemporary Hong Kong by also dramatising its own making (& featuring clips from Ruan’s New Woman & The Goddess). For many people, Maggie Cheung’s extraordinary performance as Ruan is the defining role of her career. One of Jonathan Rosenbaum’s top 10 films of the ’90s.
35mm print courtesy of Star Entertainment Hong Kong
9:45 - IRMA VEP
Olivier Assayas (1996) 99 mins M
An eccentric (genius?) French director (Jean-Pierre Léaud) wants to remake Louis Feuillade’s silent classic Les vampires & hires Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung (as herself) to play the slinky protagonist. Akin to Truffaut’s La nuit américaine in its tender rendition of the impossible process of filmmaking, Assayas adeptly employs a freewheeling-style of camerawork & improvisation to create a frenetic window onto the complex terrains of contemporary cinema, artistic genius & the nature of stardom.
35mm print courtesy of NFSA.
7.00 - IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
Wong Kar-wai (2000) 98 mins G
Exquisite, intimate, dance-like account of the never-quite-consummated relationship between two lonely married people who suspect their partners of having an affair. A rondo of glances, meticulously rendered gestures, & the extraordinary choreography of everyday life, Wong’s opus is one of the early 21st century’s greatest films, a totally engulfing but distanced portrait of a long vanished time & place (1960s Hong Kong). Wong’s extraordinary emphasis on the mood & feeling of a particular historical moment, & the choreography of music & image, provides the perfect platform for Tony Leung Chiu-wai & Maggie Cheung’s towering performances.
8:50 - FAREWELL CHINA
Clara Law (1990) 114 mins
Made in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre & nominated for Best Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards, Law’s anxious tale of identity traces a woman’s diasporically induced descent into madness & her husband’s desperate search to find his lost wife, a figure who seems to have dissolved into the murky waters of the American Dream. Maggie Cheung & Hong Kong heavyweight Tony Leung Ka-fai are remarkable as the troubled lovers in this unflinching psychodrama/political allegory.
35mm print courtesy of Star Entertainment Hong Kong
7:00 - ASHES OF TIME REDUX
Wong Kar-wai (1994/2008) 93 mins M
Essentially a film of emotions, Wong’s highly impressionistic, wildly stylised & almost abstract reworking of a seminal martial arts novel departs substantially from the original story’s plot. In Wong’s swooning & hyper-kinetic vision characters form brief relationships, drift apart & stare melancholically into the distance. This seminal film features an extraordinary cast of key actors from the golden period of early ’90s Hong Kong cinema including Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Jacky Cheung & a glorious Maggie Cheung. This is Wong’s preferred 2008 recut.
8:45 - SONG OF THE EXILE
Ann Hui (1990) 100 mins
This panoramic account of a troubled mother-daughter relationship is inspired by director Hui’s own life story. Deeply rooted in the events that shaped East Asian history after the end of the Pacific War, this exquisite & deeply moving film examines the notions of exile & diaspora from a multitude of perspectives. Features one of Maggie Cheung’s most commanding turns in the lead role, a significant performance that opened the way for her demanding roles in Centre Stage & the films of Wong Kar-wai.
35mm print courtesy of Star Entertainment Hong Kong
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
Backdrop 2:
CENTRE STAGE
Backdrop 3:
IRMA VEP
Backdrop 4:
ASHES OF TIME REDUX
Backdrop 5:
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE