Finally, I watched my first Hou Hsiao-Hsien film - "Flowers of Shanghai". What a film! A visual feast whose settings are the mere interiors of a chinese brothel. It's also probably the most boring film I've seen, bar none. And yet when I held through the end, the images, mood, ambience still lingers in my mind. Ozu is the closest director I can compare Hsien with yet I find Hsien more skillful in holding a narrative, or one like that of "Flowers..." if you can call that a narrative. Not a few (in fact, very rarely) can a director get away well with flying colors in directing a film like this. Well, that's just like saying that no director would care to make such a film if he hadn't the talent of HSH. As I was watching it, I kept saying to myself, when is this gonna end, for Pete's sake? and yet I relished every scene that was confronted to me. I had to watch it twice because the English subtitles were clashing with the Chinese characters and although I realized later on that I could go on without even reading the subtitles, the dialogue was where the thrust was although I didn't even have to be interested in it. The DVD transfer could use more detail since it suffers a bit in softness. What a great experience to discover "excitement" in a superlatively boring film! This is a first for me. At least, Ozu never bored me. Can't wait for my next HSH film. What's out on DVD? I checked Amazon.com and can't find it there.