The Island Tales
A group of disparate characters find themselves trapped overnight on a island somewhere off the coast of mainland China. The circumstances force them to overlook their preconceptions of one another, and they forge a kinship that goes to the heart their identities.
Stanley Kwan
Casts & Crew
Also Directed by Stanley Kwan
Yuan Xiuling, a former star and has-been actress plans to return to the spotlight of the theater a year after her philandering husband died. She decides to star in Two Sisters, written and directed by transwoman An Ouyang. But, her biggest rival, He Yuwen, a rising actress, also stars in the play. Yuwen plans her theatrical debut through it. During the preparation of the play, such a drama unfolds at the backstage as much as on stage. With the opening night at Hong Kong’s City Hall Theater just seven days away, tensions at rehearsal increase and tempers flare as actresses Xiuling and Yuwen’s buried resentments rise to the surface.
Shanghai, 2009. After four years of studying, a group of dance students are wished well by their teacher as they start rehearsals for their graduation performance. Meanwhile, 5 members of a 1936 Shanghai theatre troupe, lead by Master Liu, are transported into the present to broaden their horizons.
Liang Pao-erh joins the carefree “Spinsters’ Club” when she discovers her husband is having an affair. Despite the seemingly happy front that her “sisters” put on, underneath it all each of them secretly yearns for a man in their lives. When her repentant husband begs forgiveness, Liang is forced to decide on what she truly wants.
Two women are bound for the same plane, one of whom makes the flight while the other does not. In a cruel twist of fate, the plane crashes, killing everyone on board, and leaving the friends and family of the two women to talk about what was and what could have been.
Short Comedy film starring Maggie Cheung
Chronicles the love life of a man, Zhenbao. He has a steamy fling with the wife of a friend, the saucy and exciting Red Rose. Even though he feels happy with her, he knows he will not end up with her. To maintain his reputation, he marries an antiseptic, frigid but classy lady of a prim and proper background (White rose). Dissonance abound when he finds his bride irritating.
This highly personal film essay demonstrates that Chinese cinema has dealt with questions of gender and sexuality more frankly and provocatively than any other national cinema. Yang ± Yin examines male bonding and phallic imagery in the swordplay and kung fu movies of the '60s and '70s; homosexuality; same-sex bonding and physical intimacy; the continuing emphasis on women's grievances in melodramas; and the phenomenon of Yam Kim-Fai, a Hong Kong actress who spent her life portraying men on and off the screen.
The ghost of a courtesan who died in 1934 returns to Hong Kong fifty-three years later, seeking to reunite with the man she loved.
Kin chan no Cinema Jack is an anthology film starring Yuen Biao and produced by Jackie Chan
Stanley Kwan's view in this film is both personal and collective memories towards Hong Kong in 1997. He cites one famous line from Cantonese opera 'Princess Chang Ping', 'I deny, I deny, but in the end I cannot deny' as a metaphor for Hong Kongers' troubled minds when they have to recognize their identity as Chinese. To make a statement of the theme, Kwan adopts a complicated structure, mixing excerpts from his previous films, his stage play, even the soundtrack of Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild.