Center Stage

Ruan Lingyu Hong Kong 1991 | Stanley Kwan | vostEN | 155’ | digital | Cast : Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Carina Lau, Chin Han, Lawrence Ng ► Silberner Bär (Cheung), Berlinale 1992

Ruan Lingyu, nicknamed the “Chinese Greta Garbo,” was a silent movie actress in Shanghai in the early 1930s. Her tragic story is told in a hybrid format that contains a fiction period film, with Maggie Cheung playing Ruan, Kwan’s behind-the-scenes footage of that film, documentary interviews about Ruan and fragments of the star’s impressive silent work. The result is a rich and at times meta meditation on filmmaking, fame, passion and the power of images. 

« A biopic like no other. » (rogerebert.com)

« Kwan reveals the political fault lines of Ruan’s intimate passions while radically revising the bio-pic form. Her story unfolds with a glossy blend of romantic melancholy and social history; it’s intercut with clips from Ruan’s films, interviews with her now elderly real-life colleagues, discussions with his cast and crew about her life and times, and behind-the-scenes footage of his shoot. The self-aware drama moves at the hypnotic pace of an elusive dream, as in spectacularly staged musical scenes, set in a night club, that merge sinuous and languid dances with high-stakes emotional battles. » (New Yorker)