Everlasting Regret

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Movie: Everlasting Regret
Chinese: Changhen ge / 长恨歌
Director: Stanley Kwan
Writer: Anyi Wang (Novel), Elmond Yeung
Producer:
Cinematographer Huang Lian
Release Date: September 8, 2005
Runtime: 115 min.
Language: Mandarin
Country: China, Hong Kong

Plot

A person's life is destined to be shorter than that of a city. Having spent her whole life in Shanghai, Qiyao (Sammi Cheng) had her moments of prosperity and her fair share of loneliness. She finally faded and disappeared but Shanghai remains a metropolitan city. Shanghai in the 1940s was glamorous and seductive. A pretty young girl from an ordinary family, Qiyao was lucky enough to win the 2nd runner-up of the "Miss Shanghai" contest. Mr Cheng (Tony LEUNG Ka Fai), her admirer as well as a photographer who assisted her to her success, knew the girl was going to live an extraordinary life. It turned out she was going to witness the decades of changes to her city.

In 1948, Officer Li (HU Jun), a Nationalist official in control of the army, kept her as his lover. During the time, she spent her life at the Parliament ballroom,Êaccompanied him through dangerous situations, and tried to devote all of herself to a man she believed she could spend the rest of her life with. But one day, he disappeared and did not return. She never found out the reason for his disappearance. This happened often in Shanghai at the time. The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949.

In 1956, Qiyao was living a plain and simple life that was totally different from her glorious days. Nobody knew her past and she appeared to be a young single woman. Her only friend was the married Mr Cheng whom she kept at a distance. But the calmness was broken when a rich young man Ming (Daniel WU) showed up.

Qiyao was satisfied with Ming in every way except for his lack of courage as a man. When Qiyao finally made a decision to marry him, Ming left her and went to Hong Kong for his family business. In 1959, Qiyao was alone again with an unborn child. She married a sick and dying man, simply to find her child a father. Mr Cheng was the only person who understood that she did it to regain her dignity.

The cultural revolution began in 1966 and lasted for ten years. In 1968, grateful that the divorced Mr Cheng had never stopped loving her, Qiyao tried to get closer to him and wanted to marry him. Mr Cheng, however, devoted himself to popular campaign that sent educated urban men to the countryside to help the rural population. He left for Yunnan, thinking that it would only be a year, but did not come back until 1976.

Kela (HUANG Jue), a comrade from Yunnan, came to visit Mr Cheng in 1980. Kela was a young man addicted to the lifestyle of old Shanghai, and despite the age difference, he and Qiyao fell in love with each other. Unfortunately, he secretly planned to go abroad, leaving Qiyao alone in Shanghai, just as what his predecessors had done. Qiyao finally broke down as she realized no one was as loyal as she was to the city where her life began and would end.