Chinese Box (1997)

Editor's Note Hong Kong-born American director Wayne Wang returned to the city in 1990 to make the gritty street-level thriller LIFE IS CHEAP...BUT TOILET PAPER IS EXPENSIVE. In 1997, with the city on the verge of the British handing the colony back to the Chinese, he returned for a different look. In CHINESE BOX, Jeremy Irons plays John, an English journalist moving among the Chinese business elite and British officials at expensive nightclubs. However, the politics of transition are seen through the prism of his personal relationships. He is in love with Vivian (Gong Li), a woman he meets in Beijing who's now working at a club owned by Chang (Michael Hui), the man she wants to marry. But Chang wants to become respectable and won't marry her because of her checkered past. After a personal crisis, John goes out with a camcorder to capture images of the last days of British rule. He becomes fascinated by Jean, a mysterious woman who hides half her face behind a scarf as she darts through the streets aggressively selling strange items. Played with a manic verve by martial arts star Maggie Cheung, Jean comes to represent everything that is strange and enigmatic about Hong Kong. Taken from a story by Paul Theroux and written by Jean-Claude Carrière, a frequent collaborator with Luis Buñuel, CHINESE BOX is a thoughtful, realistic blend of individual lives set against a large historical backdrop.

	Maggie Cheung
	Gong Li
	Ruben Blades
	Jeremy Irons
	Michael Hui
	Shirley Chan - Costume Designer
	Christopher Tellefsen - Editor
	Lydia Dean Pilcher - Producer
	Larry Gross - Screenwriter
	Vilko Filac - Director of Photography
	Graeme Revell - Composer
	Jean-Louis Piel - Producer
	Wayne Wang - Producer
	Wayne Wang - Director

In the days preceding the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, an embittered expatriate British journalist pines unrequitedly for a beautiful but distant Chinese society woman. A heavily metaphorical and atmospheric love story, with each of the principals representing an aspect of the complicated cultural quadrangle between Hong Kong, Mainland China, England, and the global community. New York Times
"...[A] poetically resonant movie....The film's lyrical sweep and refined performances ensure that its elegiac echoes linger long after the final credits have rolled..." 04/17/1998 p.E18

Los Angeles Times
"...The film pays tremendous -- and redeeming -- attention to nuance and detail....Sophisticated, ironic and highly complex..." 04/17/1998 p.C8