Year: 1987
Director: Stanley Kwan
Runtime: 97 minutes
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese with English and Chinese subtitles
Rating: NC16

4K RESTORATION

Awards
BEST LEADING ACTRESS (Anita Mui)
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
BEST ART DIRECTION
Golden Horse Film Festival 1987

BEST PICTURE
BEST DIRECTOR
BEST ACTRESS (Anita Mui)
BEST FILM EDITING
BEST ORIGINAL FILM SONG
BEST ORIGINAL FILM SCORE
Hong Kong Film Awards 1989

Synopsis

Oscillating between past and present, tradition and modernity, Rouge delivers an erotic and poignant romance between two star-crossed lovers in 1930s and 1980s Hong Kong. Driven to commit suicide together, elegant courtesan Fleur (Anita Mui) and young magnate Chan (Leslie Cheung) promise to reunite in the afterlife. After waiting for him in limbo for fifty years, she returns to the living as a ghost in search of her long-lost lover, only to find her home and cultural mores uprooted in an alien contemporary world which she navigates with the help of a newspaperman and his girlfriend. Where the opulent teahouses of pre-war Hong Kong are replaced with bland modern apartments, Fleur’s pursuit for love may be as elusive as time itself.

From his directorial debut Women (1985) to Rouge (1987), auteur Stanley Kwan is celebrated for his nuanced treatment of women in his films, especially characters confronted by urban alienation, sexual suppression and identity struggles within Hong Kong’s rapidly changing social milieu.

This film is part of the programme Rerun: December 2025. For more screenings, please click here. 

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