Hu-Du-Men

Audience Reviews

View All (6) audience reviews

Audience Member Love Siao Fong Fong! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member Subtle melodrama dealing with many sensitive subjects (sexual identity, children/parents relations, emigration...). Great performance from the legendary Josephine Siao! Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member A film by Kei Shu, who is a famous film critic and one of Hong Kong new wave directors. It describes the last days of acting career of a veteran Guangdong Opera actress, who plays a man on the stage. Hu Du Men (Hu Du Gate) is the gate that Guangdong opera actors go through to appear on stage, and they have to forget themselves and to identify totally with their roles once they go through it. The heroin is very popular stage actress with great skills, but so many things happen in her real life. By using Guangdong Opera (in which the heroin plays a man) symbolically, it captures not only an actress's but also a woman's middle age very well. Especially it is interesting how this film describes the issue of transsexuality and gender, which Kei Shu deals with again in his later work "A Queer Story" (1997). The characters, especially the heroin, are little bit too eccentric, I think, but the topic is already great. Josephine Siao, who herself is the legendary actress in Hong Kong for so long, gives an excellent performance (much better than in Ann Hui's "Summer Snow") which embodies the two-sides (a top actress who is a man on the stage/a wife and a mother who has so many family issues) of the complicated character perfectly. It is interesting that the whole mood of the film that is created bu Kei Shu is similar rather to Taiwanese films, like Edward Yang's works, than other Hong Kong films. Human Dramas by HK New Wave directors like Kei Shu and Ann Hui can be said as the other face of HK cinema. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Beautiful and moving true story of Cantonese opera through the life of a retiring stage actress who was huge in the 1960s and 70s. In the lead, Josephine Siao is absolutely fantastic -- she won the Golden Horse for Best Actress that year, and it was well deserved. Based on a Raymond To play (he's also written the classic Tsui Hark film Peking Opera Blues and, more recently, Perhaps Love), it's actually quite a complex family drama. Aside from the stage, there's trouble on all fronts, with husband quarrels, her daughter who becomes involved in a blossoming lesbian relationship, and the return of a past flame. I would love to get this on DVD; it's so touching and different from anything out there. Sadly I haven't seen it around -- I've been lucky enough to catch it on Star Chinese Movies in regular rotation these days. The music is wonderful, and if you can see it, you should. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Audience Member Okay.... good for older people who love Cantonese opera but the young won't like it anyway.... Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Well...I hardly remember the story of this film, just remember it's a so-far-so-good film. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Hu-Du-Men

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW