Rouge

1988

1h 38m

Romance

List

83%

6 Reviews

Tomatometer

86%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Fleur (Anita Mui) is a highly sought-after courtesan working the bordellos of 1930s Hong Kong when she meets Chan (Leslie Cheung), the heir to a successful pharmacy franchise, and they fall in love. Chan risks losing the support and rank of his family by staying with Fleur, however, so they agree to meet in the afterlife after a suicide pact. When Fleur can't find Chan, she decides to return to the living half a century later to search for her missing lover.

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Richard Brody

New Yorker

Kwan renders the thirties in florid images and modern times in muted tones; his view of the shock of history feels all the more prescient in light of recent repressive changes in Hong Kong.

Oct 19, 2022

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Jake Cole

Slant Magazine

With its use of overlapping time, its sumptuous and humid colors, and occasional futzing with frame rates to create hyperreal motion, Rouge anticipates the work of Wong Kar-wai.

Jul 15, 2022

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Brian Susbielles

InSession Film

It is a journey to a time seemingly glamorous, yet everything always has a spell that can never be broken.

Feb 22, 2023

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Panos Kotzathanasis

Asian Movie Pulse

"Rouge" is one of the best movies ever to come out of Hong Kong, a triumph of style and drama, and a must-watch for every fan of cinema.

Dec 23, 2019

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Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Rated: 2/5

Jul 26, 2005

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Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

This is a visually appealing Hong Kong ghost story film, that is highly stylized, told from the perspective of a courtesan, Anita Mui (Fleur).

Rated: A

Jan 1, 2000

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Audience Member

dashing and mesmerizing

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/26/23

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Audience Member

Not the kind of movie I will rewatch until I've forgotten it in a decade. It's beautifully shot, and the story is fascinating, though the end of the movie really fell on its face for me.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/30/23

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Audience Member

Classic. Still watchable and sad.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/17/23

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weng s

Classic, Unique. Creative and innovative way of unfolding an undying love story. Will leave you feeling disturbed. Starring 2 super HK stars of their time, sadly, both artists have died, one of cancer, the other suicide. It's a shame people no longer made such unique movies.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

Love the idea, but the film is quite boring..

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

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Audience Member

The first in a string of noteworthy Lillian Lee adaptations filmmaker Stanley Kwan's "Rouge" is a surreal anxiety attack on celluloid that relies heavily on the captivating performance of lead Anita Mui and the arresting score by composers Michael Lai and Tang Siu-lam to inflate this critically lauded ghost picture. Leslie Cheung is the eldest living son of prosperous shop owners who falls in love with the most coveted courtesan (Mui) of an affluent brothel in Hong Kong, circa 1934. The young master's parents naturally disapprove; freeze his cash flow, later forcing the would-be lovers into a suicide pact so their spirits can fuse in the afterlife. Decades later, the courtesan's ghost returns searching for the young master who apparently didn't expire. Her human counterparts are dullards Alex Man and Emily Chu who navigate the weakening ghost through 1987 Hong Kong in search of her true love (presumably still residing in the area). To our relief, Kwan eschews the nominal trappings of the fish-out-of-water narrative in contemporary Hong Kong though he flattens any semblance of context in the lovers' doomed union and his overuse of pretentious slow motion photography is exhausting. Audiences may wonder if there was more to Lee's novel though the author is listed as one of two credited screen writers.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

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Stanley Kwan Kam-Pang

Director

Anita Mui

Fleur

Leslie Cheung

Chan Chen-Pang

Alex Man

Yuen

Emily Chu

Ah Chor

Jackie Chan

Executive Producer

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Synopsis

Fleur (Anita Mui) is a highly sought-after courtesan working the bordellos of 1930s Hong Kong when she meets Chan (Leslie Cheung), the heir to a successful pharmacy franchise, and they fall in love. Chan risks losing the support and rank of his family by staying with Fleur, however, so they agree to meet in the afterlife after a suicide pact. When Fleur can't find Chan, she decides to return to the living half a century later to search for her missing lover.

Director: Stanley Kwan Kam-Pang
Producer: Jackie Chan, Willie Chan
Screenwriter: Li Pik-Wah
Production Co: Golden Harvest Company
Genre: Romance
Original Language: Chinese
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 15, 2017
Runtime: 1h 38m