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The screening is to pay tribute to the iconic Hong Kong actor and singer Leslie Cheung who passed away tragically on 1 April 2003. It will be shown in the beautiful new restoration and the screening on Monday 1 April will be introduced by Chris Berry (KCL), and the screening on 2 April will be introduced by Tony Rayns.
Cantopop superstars Anita Mui Yim-fong and Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing display their iconic androgynous magnetism as doomed lovers in this emblematic film of Hong Kong’s Second New Wave, directed by pioneering queer melodrama master Stanley Kwan. Rouge bridges past and present in its tragic romance between a humble courtesan and the wayward scion of a wealthy family, who embrace death by suicide pact amid the opulent teahouses of 1930s Hong Kong. Fifty years later, she returns to the city-state to find him, drawing a young contemporary couple (Alex Man Chi-leung and Emily Chu Bo-yee) into her quest to rekindle a passion that may be as illusory as time itself. With its lush mise-en-scène and transcendently melancholy mood, this sensuous ghost story is an exquisite, enduringly resonant elegy for both lost love and vanishing history.
This is presented by The Garden Cinema’s Chinese Cinema Project and is sponsored by London Capital Homes.
Cast:
Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Alex Man