Screening as part of 20/20 VISIONS: Chosen by Actress Julie Christie. A visually hypnotic and intricately fascinating portrait of love, power, and servitude in late 19th century Shanghai’s brothels, also known as the ‘flower houses’. Every detail in the sumptuous, opium hazy brothel in which we’re trapped for the duration of this extraordinary film, is beautiful. Though, amazingly, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s camera barely moves, we are captivated by the games of seduction and competition played out by the ‘flower girls’, on which their very lives depend. Written by Julie Christie.