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Award
at the Hong Kong Film Awards 1985:
Best Original Film Score (Lam Man-Yi)
Nominations at the Hong Kong Film Awards 1985:
Best Supporting Actress (Chiao Chiao)
Best Cinematography (Anthony Hope)
Best Art Direction (Tony Au)
Award at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards 1984:
Best Costume Design (Wong Yiu Lin)
I came
to love Chow Yun-Fat like most others did, through the works
of action master John Woo. Yes, there's no doubt that Chow
Yun-Fat is the world's coolest action hero but what I came
to respect more was the actual acting. There was human drama
present in John's films and Chow rarely missed a beat when
it came to having perform that aspect of the films. Of course,
as years progressed, I went through Chow's filmography, looking
for the drama gems (not as widely seen in the West sadly)
and today such movies as An Autumn's Tale ranks as
absolute favourites of any genre in Hong Kong cinema for me.
At the
end of 2002, Celestial/IVL finally began putting out the remastered
Shaw Brother's catalogue on dvd and part of the first wave
was Ann Hui's Love In A Fallen City. I certainly haven't
heard of it and probably not many others due to the fact that
Shaw's never really licensed their catalogue of films for
home video releases. In the case of this movie there was a
Pioneer Japanese Laserdisc edition without English subtitles
released but it took 18 years before Love In A Fallen City,
Chow's second collaboration with Hui and co-star Cora Miao
(both were in the sought after The Story Of Woo Viet,
shot in 1981) could be widely seen.
Based
on the novel by Eileen Chang set in 1940's Shanghai and Hong
Kong, we meet Liu Su-Pai (Cora Miao), living a depressed existence
in a large family. The heads of the family are constantly
looking to getting their daughters married but Pai, after
a divorce many years ago, has given up any hope that she will
meet a man or amount to anything in life. She does agree though
to go to Hong Kong and meet Mr. Fan (Chow Yun-Fat). Fan sees
in Pai what many others doesn't and tries his hardest to make
her love again. Also brewing underneath is talks of an Japanese
invasion of Hong Kong...
My
viewing experience of Ann Hui movies was before Love In
A Fallen City restricted to her latest output, Visible
Secret and July Rhapsody. Having heard her quoted
as a good director, those two works cemented that reputation.
However going back as far as 1984 doesn't mean we find less
quality on hand. On the contrary, there are many strengths
in this romantic drama but I didn't expect it to be this challenging.
On a side note, first thing that you're greeted with is the
extremely crappy Shaw Brothers logo that apparently, somewhere
between the 70s and 80s, replaced the wonderfully classy one
that most of us have seen. With that ugliness out of the way,
it was exciting to find out that Love In A Fallen City
was not all what I expected. Ann Hui gives us a very talky
romance focusing on strict Chinese family values and a struggle
it takes for two to actually fall in love. Not being prepared
certainly doesn't hurt the film, nor is not knowing much of
Chinese family values and the way setting up marriages work
but I must warn you that you have to listen carefully to fully
take in what Ann Hui is communicating to us. It's more a film
for Hong Kong people than for Westerners but the themes at
their core are not restricted to Asian culture only.
The meaning of the film lies in the meeting and developing
relationship between Fan & Pai. It's very much an unexpected
complex romance we're treated to, with numerous scenes of
dialogue between the two and Fan's attempts at making her
love him. That is what it basically is and it's interesting
that the two doesn't seem to want to be part of the laid down
rules. He has been abroad and lost touch with his Chinese
ways while she has been so outside of it that she doesn't
want to begin following it again. We're unsure of his motives
since he does act in an insensitive way, says harsh things
but he's actually challenging the said rules by wanting to
LOVE the woman he's set up with. Also, it's a personal challenge
for Fan, more so since Pai has her guard up most of the time
but ultimately can't hide the fact that she is longing for
love. It's quite an involving trip that could've suffered
a few times at the hands of obvious movie clichés. Thankfully
Ann Hui makes these moments seem fresh and the emotional core
she builds up gets paid off when the relationship reaches
a point where they may lose each other. Hui also touches upon
how the westernization of Hong Kong people is frowned upon
and in addition to that wisely chooses to not deal with making
characters out of the invading Japanese forces, just stating
that they're there and it happened at one point in history.
With so much dialogue and things to digest, Fung Cho's writing
does become a bit muddled at times but if you do take a liking
to the film the first time, I think a second viewing where
you listen even more could be rewarding.
Being a Shaw Brother's production, the film looks outstanding.
Interior and exterior design is of the highest caliber and
it's a wonderful transportation for the viewer to the 1940s.
When the invasion happens later in the film, it's integrated
almost to a degree of perfection, not showing much but not
bound by budget restraints either.
That the relationships between Fan and Pai is involving is
not only a tribute to the writing but the chemistry between
our two leads Chow Yun-Fat and Cora Miao. Chow enters the
picture relatively late so we're first getting aquatinted
to Cora's character. I would say that I can't find any flaw
with her performance, playing the saddened, shy Pai that only
truly opens up with Fan. It's one of those characters that,
because of how she is, is perceived as ugly but with the right
person and environment is a true beauty. For Chow, this film
was the most successful financially out of his 1984 output
but Taiwan rightly gave him a award for his work in Hong
Kong 1941 instead, also set during the same historical
events. In Love In A Fallen City he impresses with
his natural charisma and is as handsome and suave looking
as he is today. As with the romance, the character can be
harder to grasp, his true intentions about getting to know
Pai etc. but Chow does deliver, even if it isn't a career
best performance. He and Cora have solid chemistry and so
much a part why Love In A Fallen City gets such a strong
emotional response from the viewer towards the end.
Ann Hui's Love In A Fallen City is for an audience
who doesn't say no to listening and thinking while watching.
I would of course recommend it to any Chow Yun-Fat fan and
it's a thought provoking and engaging romantic drama finally
available to the masses. Shaw Brother's was more than just
martial arts.
The DVD:
Celestial/IVL presents the movie in it's original 1.85:1
aspect ratio. The remastered print looks lovely, doing justice
to the intended colours and hazy nature of the cinematography.
One or two scenes feel a little dark though plus the occasional
print damage does show up.
The Cantonese language track is remixed into 5.1 and is a
pleasant listen. Most of the movie is dialogue driven and
only a few times it gets mildly distorted. The explosions
and gunfire towards the end seem a bit too loud but nicely
integrated into this mix. A Mandarin 5.1 dub is also included.
The English subtitles are very good thankfully since this
film relies much on dialogue. The odd error in the forms of
letters that aren't supposed to be there pop up and at times,
the same subtitles line repeats itself (an error on the first
few batches from Celestial/IVL). Other subtitle options are
Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, traditional Chinese and
simplified Chinese.
Being part of the first batch, Love In A Fallen City
has a number of extras (the supplements was not as generous
as the releases went on), starting with the feature length
audio commentary with Stefan Hammond (author of Sex &
Zen and A Bullet In The Head and Hollywood East) and actress
Almen Wong (Till Death Do Us Part, Her Name Is Cat).
On the plus side, first half has a decent amount of discussion
regarding aspects such as cinematography and the cast &
crew's careers. Brief history is given about Shanghai plus
some of the actual locations used in the film The problem
with Hammond in particular is that he seems to start going
in-depth on a particular subject but never does and Almen
is basically there to provide some basic insights as a viewer.
The second half of the track almost stops dead completely
and while the two do not necessarily begin narrating the film,
discussing what goes on it in general is not an excuse either.
Fairly informative although most of what you hear will be
known to you or found on other parts of the dvd. Note that
the commentary starts about 35 seconds into the film but the
participants actually started at the top, making the commentary
out of sync. This isn't much of a problem since they aren't
completely screen specific all the time but needed to be mentioned.
Moving on, we have three newly filmed English language interviews
(in anamorphic widescreen) with the director of the film,
Ann Hui, actress/model Maggie Q and Hong Kong cinema expert
Paul Fonoroff. Ann Hui talks about growing up reading kung-fu
novels, the directors she admired growing up (martial arts
ones actually including Chang Cheh and King Hu) and favourite
movies of hers (again in the martial arts genre). Subsequently
she touches upon topics such as the new wave of directors
that she belonged to and her attitude towards the portrayal
of women in Hong Kong cinema. Sadly, Love In A Fallen City
is never discussed once but at 8 minutes and 39 seconds, this
segment is a decent watch.
(from the Ann Hui and Paul Fonoroff interviews)
Maggie Q on the other hand, despite having nothing to do
with it, discusses Love In A Fallen City more specifically.
We're not talking scholar like insights but at least she did
have something to say about cinematography, wardrobe, acting
etc. Clearly, Celestial are aiming at a larger market by having
people like Maggie Q do interviews for this dvd and other
titles have featured actors/actresses with no connection to
the movies at hand either. Mostly they're there to plug themselves
but thankfully this 8 minute, 6 second interview never goes
down that road.
Paul Fonoroff talks about Eileen Chang and the fact she worked
as a screenwriter on Chinese comedies as opposed to her novel
work which was more serious. He also discusses that people
in the industry thinks the Eileen Chang way of writing doesn't
always gets transferred well to the screen (other novels of
hers have turned into films, including Eighteen Springs,
also directed by Ann Hui) and the set design of Love In
A Fallen City, an aspect many remembers. A few nice insights
but the 4 minute running time doesn't get in depth obviously.
Behind The Scenes is a picture gallery (18 screens
but some contain more than one image) with helpful captions
to illustrate what and who we're watching. Nice to have actual
behind the scenes photos and not just publicity shots or lobby
cards.
New releases has newly created trailers (with Cantonese
and Mandarin audio available but no English subtitles) for
the following Celstial/IVL releases: The Kingdom And The
Beauty, The Tea House, Killer Clans and
The Price Of Love. The Trailers section has
the new trailer for Love In A Fallen City and, to my
delight, the original, horrible looking, cinema trailer. Celestial
may not have worked with a print this bad but nonetheless,
after watching the original trailer, you can't help but to
admire the final result seen in the feature.
(from the original and new trailer respectively)
Music Video is for a song played in the film and set
to clips from the film. Change the soundtrack (or choose in
the menu) and you get a karaoke version of the track. Chinese
Lyrics are imbedded on the clip.
The Movie Information section has 10 Colour Stills
from the film, the original poster (also seen on the back
cover of the dvd in smaller size), production notes that are
actually the plot synopsis and biographies/filmographies for
Chow Yun-Fat, Cora Miao, Ann Hui and Eileen Chang. The bio's
for Hui and Chang go fairly in depth but overall they are
informative.
reviewed by Kenneth
Brorsson
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