Yin ji kau (Rouge)

A polite woman in a flowered cheongsam turns up at the office of a Hong Kong newspaper to place an advert for a meeting at the usual place. But she can't pay. Over the course of the night, she appears again and again to the editor in charge. He realises that she is a ghost, a courtesan who committed double suicide with her lover in 1934. But because she was unable to find him in the afterlife, she has returned on the anniversary of her death: the editor wants to help her, but first has to convince his disgruntled girlfriend. A delicate masterpiece by the great melodramatist Stanley Kwan, played with unobtrusive elegance and enormous nuance (especially by Anita Mui, a character surrounded by quiet sadness). Despite its enchanting atmosphere with opium-intoxicated flashbacks to the 1930s and subtle satire on the 1980s, Rouge is existentially shattering: a deeply felt film about the transience of things - and of love. (Christoph Huber)

Introduction by Christoph Huber on 3 March 2025

Photo: Austrian Film Museum