Peking Opera Blues (1986)

This film is also showing at our sister cinema, Ritz Cinemas

Australian Premiere - 4K Restoration

‘As a director and producer, [Tsui] Hark has emerged as the most influential figure of the [1980s], a virtuoso of high-speed narration and optical panache … at his best, as in the period comedy Peking Opera Blues, his interlocking machinery of cues and responses induces a euphoria in which one is happy to mistake the screen’s leaps and convolutions for a semblance of reality.’ – Geoffrey O’Brien, The New York Review of Books

Set in 1913, after the fall of China’s last imperial dynasty, Tsui Hark’s vibrant action-comedy follows three young women – a cross-dressing spy (Brigittte Lin), a musician and courtesan (Cherie Chung), and an aspiring actor (Sally Yeh) – who become entangled in a political conflict. Forming an alliance with a guerrilla fighter (Mark Cheng) and a disillusioned soldier (Cheung Kwok Keung), the group enacts a plan to protect the democracy of the fledgling Chinese Republic.

Showcasing Tsui at the exhilarating height of his powers, Peking Opera Blues is an enigmatic, richly layered and wildly entertaining opus that director Quentin Tarantino has declared ‘one of the greatest films ever made.’

Introduced by Cecilia Tsan at Lido Cinemas and Dylan Cheung at Ritz Cinemas.

Rating

M

Duration

105 min

Country

Hong Kong

Language

Cantonese and Mandarin (English subtitles)

Cast

Brigitte Lin, Cherie Chung, Sally Yeh, Paul Chun, Wu Ma, Kenneth Tsang, Mark Cheng, Cheung Kwok Keung

Director

Tsui Hark