Directed by:
Kaige ChenScreenplay:
Kei ShuCinematography:
Christopher DoyleComposer:
Jiping ZhaoPlots(1)
A lush, lyrical parable about the modernization of China, TEMPTRESS MOON is the story of Zhongliang (Leslie Cheung), a Shanghai gangster raised on the sumptuous rural estate of the powerful, opium-addled Pang family. As a boy, Zhongliang, promised the life of a student, becomes instead a servant for his sister and her drug-addicted husband and a playmate for Ruyi (Gong Li), the female heir to the Pang dynasty. A permanent outsider, Zhongliang escapes the painful decadence of the Pang household and becomes a smooth-talking mobster, seducing women in the jazz-saturated clubs of 1920s Shanghai, but he is forced to face his past when hired to seduce and abduct Ruyi in a criminal attempt to gain control over the now vulnerable Pang estate. What begins as a routine seduction becomes more complicated when Zhongliang finds himself unable to escape his true feelings for Ruyi and crippling memories of his painful childhood. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Leslie Cheung
Hong Kong
Best movies:
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
A Better Tomorrow II (1987)
A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Li Gong
China
Best movies:
To Live (1994)
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Caifei He
China
Best movies:
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
Lust, Caution (2007)
Temptress Moon (1996)
Xun Zhou
China
Best movies:
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Perhaps Love (2005)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002)
Patrick Tse
China
Best movies:
Flaming Brothers (1987)
The Millionaires' Express (1986)
The Blade Spares None (1971)
David Wu
Best movies:
Farewell My Concubine (1993)
Tiger Cage 2 (1990)
Looking for Mr. Perfect (2003)
Shih Chang
Taiwan
Best movies:
The Wooden Man's Bride (1994)
Taipei Story (1985)
Rainy Dog (1997)