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How did Ann Hui bring Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City and Eighteen Springs to life?
Director Ann Hui has adapted three of Eileen Chang’s stories for the big screen. We look at two: Love in a Fallen City and Eighteen Springs
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Celebrated novelist Eileen Chang Ai-ling was not only a film fan, but she also worked as a film critic and wrote movie scripts. Chang’s own novellas were often considered difficult to adapt for the screen.
“Her stories are beautiful because of their language and details, not their plots,” critic Paul Fonoroff wrote in the South China Morning Post.
Nevertheless, the great Hong Kong director Ann Hui On-wah has tried three times, with Love in a Fallen City (1984), Eighteen Springs (1997) and Love After Love (2020). Here, we take a look at her first two Chang adaptations.
Love in a Fallen City (1984)
This beautifully wrought version of Chang’s 1943 novella features Chow Yun-fat as a playboy and Cora Miao Chien-jen as the demure Shanghainese woman he falls in love with.
Hui constantly sought to experiment during her early career – later helming the martial arts epic The Romance of Book and Sword, for instance – and this adaptation marks a significant departure in visual style from her preceding films, including The Secret and the acclaimed Boat People.
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