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"Eighteen Springs" is an adaptation of an Eileen Chang novel of the same name, and is the second Eileen Chang film Ann Hui made (the first was "Love in a Fallen City", in 1984). For those who do not know who Eileen Chang is, she is now esteemed as the greatest female Chinese-language writer of the twentieth century. For some of her fans, she is simply the greatest Chinese novelist of the century, bar none."Eighteen Springs", made in 1997, boasts a stellar cast from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China - Wu Chien-Lien takes centerstage with perhaps her finest role of her career, and she is luminous throughout, especially in the earlier parts of the film. (It was a travesty of justice that Maggie Cheung - great actress though she is - won the HK Academy Best Actress Award for "The Soong Sisters". Wu's performance is incomparably more nuanced.) Ge You and Huang Lei, from Mainland China, are both superb, while Anita Mui and Leon Lai are generally a match for their Mainland counterparts.Under Ann Hui's patient and involving direction, everything unfolds with a rarefied beauty and intensity. Set in Shanghai and Nanjing, "Eighteen Springs" is one of the few films that gives you the feeling of falling in love - albeit in the Eastern (restrained) kind of way. You can feel the care and warmth permeating through every frame, as Manzhen's and Shijun's love unfolds. However, as in almost all Eileen Chang's novels, the story turns tragically. Sadly, the melodramatic pivot, coming in the last 30 minutes of the movie, makes Ge You and Anita Mui no more than a stock villain and villainess, and the story becomes much more predictable after this. Perhaps Ann Hui can handle that particular scene better. But the film ends strongly, with the poignant re-meeting of the couple 14 years later.This is probably a minor gripe, considering Hong Kong cinema generally doesn't do adaptations very well. But Ann Hui's "Eighteen Springs" is certainly one of her finest films. I'm too much under the magic of the movie and Eileen Chang's story to be bothered. The only other quibble is that the budget is pretty tight for this movie and as such the sets and costumes are not as sumptuous as some, but really, you can't win everything.
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