What It’s About
In the tumultuous China of the early 1930s, Ruan Ling-yu (Cheung) was one of the biggest stars of silent cinema, on a par with Greta Garbo. The pressures of fame and a messy, marriage-busting romance with director Tsai Chu-seng (Leung) lead Ruan to commit suicide in 1935, at age 24. And yet, as we discover, what a colorful, eventful life she packed into that short span of time.
Why We Love It
Director Kwan intersperses his evocative period narrative with clips from the few Ruan films that still exist, and current-day interviews with both the film’s actors and surviving players of the time. The resulting cinematic tapestry might have felt disorienting, but in Kwan’s skilled hands, it works. The star power of Cheung and Leung (who’d team again in 2000’s “In the Mood For Love”) certainly helps; it’s no surprise she won Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival. “Center Stage” is fully worthy of its tragic heroine, whose radiant talent was extinguished too soon.