(Stanley Kwan, 1991, Hong Kong, 154 minutes)

35^th anniversary shows! 4K restoration!

After making her name as a model and in glorified arm candy roles in 80s Hong Kong cinema (not least of which the Police Story movies), Maggie Cheung started garnering the respect she deserved as an actress between the one-two punch of Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild and Stanley Kwan’s Center Stage. In the latter, Cheung plays the real-life silent cinema star Ruan Lingyu, the quote-unquote “Greta Garbo of China,” who starred in a few major Chinese silent melodramas before committing suicide at the age of 24. Director Kwan (Rouge) deftly mimics all manner of modes of cinema, but Cheung (In the Mood for Love) is head-spinning in her navigation between Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and English, all the while painting a deeply empathetic and ultimately tragic character.

In Cantonese, Mandarin, Shanghainese, and English with English subtitles