胭脂扣

Stanley Kwan’s Rouge unfolds as a hauntingly melancholic romance transcending life and death. Set in both a decadent 1930s and a modernized 1980s Hong Kong, the film follows the ghost of Fleur (Anita Mui), a courtesan who returns to the mortal world searching for her long-lost lover, Chan Chen-pang (Leslie Cheung). Their tragic love story—sealed with a suicide pact—stands in stark contrast to the transformed city that has forgotten them.

A meditation on memory, longing, and the irretrievability of the past, Rouge captures the ethereal yet ephemeral nature of love, echoing the ghostly presence of old Hong Kong amidst rapid modernization. Kwan’s delicate storytelling, combined with Christopher Doyle’s atmospheric cinematography and Mui’s breathtaking performance, crafts an elegy for a bygone era, where romance and heartbreak linger like faded perfume in the air. (CiLENS)