The White Countess
I saw an interesting film last night called The White Countess, set in 1930s Shanghai just before the Japanese invasion. As the last Merchant Ivory Production (A Room With A View, Howard's End), the film is visually beautiful: It was filmed on location in Shanghai with cinematography by the great Christopher Doyle (Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love).
The film does a good job of capturing the nightclubs and jazz of old Shanghai: a decadent free port for refugees and opportunists from around the world. Jackson (Ralph Fiennes) is a blind American diplomat who has lost his daughter and his eyesight in a terrorist bombing. In his despair, he decides to create the perfect nightclub. When he meets Sofia Belinsky (Natasha Richardson), a White Russian Countess (25,000 Tsarist aristocrats and soldiers fled to China during the Bolshevik Revolution) working as a prositute and bar girl, he decides to make her the centerpiece of his club.
While the pace of the film is a bit slow and plodding, it is nevertheless fascinating to watch for the setting, costumes, music, and cinematography.