Rebecca Pan

Friends turn into lovers and affairs abound when two couples move into a new apartment building around the same time in the 1960s.

Starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Michiko Hada, and Michelle Reis, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s gorgeous period reverie is an intoxicating, time-bending experience that traces the romantic intrigue, jealousies, and tensions swirling around four late-nineteenth-century Shanghai “flower houses,” where courtesans live confined to a gilded cage.

Produced by Wong Kar Wai—and featuring some of his most beloved stars—this irresistibly entertaining comic adventure giddily spoofs everything from classic Chinese musicals to wuxia epics to Wong’s own films. In Ming Dynasty China, an Emperor (Chang Chen) and a princess (Faye Wong), both desperate for the life of a free-spirited wanderer, attempt to escape from the royal palace. The princess, disguised as a man, finds herself attracting the attention of a boorish restaurant owner (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), precipitating much gender- and genre-bending mayhem.