Centre stage = Yuen Ling Yuk

Based on the real life of Chinese silent movie star Ruan Lingyu, ‘Centre Stage’ brings back to life the golden age of the ‘Hollywood of the East’, the Lienhau studios of Shanghai in the 1930s. Ruan (Maggie Cheung) is already an established star at age 20 when her world starts to collapse. First married to an immature, pleasure seeking play boy, she obtains a costly divorce in order to set-up house with Tang Chi Shan (Tony Leung Ka-fai), a producer at Lienhua who is also a married man. Tired of playing melodramatic characters, Ruan accepts a role in film directed by an up and coming director titled ‘New Woman’. The film is a vicious attack of the Chinese press whose tabloid style is pushing a woman to destruction. The press retaliates so violently that massive cuts are ordered to appease the anger of the opinion makers. This is the time Ruan’s ex-husband re-appears and threatens to expose her as an adulteress. Ruan’s star starts to spiral down. The film blends fact and fiction, documentary and narrative. Rare footage of the real Ruan’s performances are mixed with Cheung’s re-creations of Ruan’s lost films. In a clever twist of casting, the role of Ruan, originally intended for Anita Mui (Kwan’s star in ‘Rouge’), went to Maggie Cheung. Cheung was the same age as Ruan at the time of her suicide and had had many run-ins with the Hong Kong press. Kwan blends his narrative with documentary style footage of Cheung explaining how she researched the part and interviews with Chinese cinema veterans. The result is an interrogation on cinema itself. The film won several awards, including the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 1992 Berlin Film Festival. Also stars Carina Lau, Waise Lee, Cecilia Yip. In Cantonese with English subtitles. The film is also known as ‘The Actress’, ‘The New China Woman’ in various English releases or ‘Ruan Ling-yu’ in Mandarin.