Release Date: June 20, 2025
Shanghai Blues has been updated to 4K and unlike other releases, Tsui Hark knows that audiences have to experience this classic on the big screen instead of just releasing it to disc! This film is one part comedy and another romance. As for what’s next on this auteur’s plate, fans can look forward to the release of Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants sometime this year, and in pre-production is Shih, Queen of the Sea. The former is a new take on a fond tale and the latter concerns one of the meanest pirates to sail the Asiatic seas! Both are equally ambitious works, and we’re glad this filmmaker is not retiring soon.
Shanghai Blues Plot Synopsis
In 1937, after The Second Sino-Japanese War breaks out, a soldier and a young woman have an awkward meet cute in darkness under a bridge as they seek refuge during a bomb raid. Although they can’t see each other’s faces, they promise to meet again after the dust settles. Ten years later, the soldier, now a burgeoning songwriter and tuba-player in a marching band, is back in town desperately searching for his would-be soulmate. As fate would have it they end up living in the same building unbeknownst to each other. Through a series of mishaps he mistakes her new ingénue roommate for his love interest and wacky love triangle hijinks ensue.
Consummate auteur Tsui Hark almost single-handedly reinvented Hong Kong cinema in the 80s and 90s with uber-kinetic genre opuses, amping up cinematic spectacle whether with special effects or sheer unbridled energy. This Hong Kong styled homage to the screwball comedies of yesteryear features black belt level slapstick and delightfully droll romcom shenanigans. With striking mise en scène and inspired production design Shanghai Blues, “…luscious, loving and a lot of fun…one of Tsui Hark’s most enjoyable works” — Richard James Havis, South China Morning Post.
The 4K restoration of SHANGHAI BLUES was supervised from the original negative by Tsui Hark with L’Immagine Ritrovata and the soundtrack remixed by One Cool Sound.
Tsui Hark Biography
This filmmaker is widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in Hong Kong cinema, known for his innovative style and pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. He emerged as a key figure during the 1980s Hong Kong New Wave, challenging genre conventions and censorship restrictions with films like Butterfly Murders and Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind. And with his film series Once Upon a Time in China and Detective Dee turning into major commercial successes, Tsui remains of the highest-grossing filmmakers in Chinese-language cinema.
In 1984, Tsui co-founded Film Workshop, leading to a series of commercially successful films that defined the golden era of Hong Kong cinema. Works such as A Chinese Ghost Story, Swordsman, and Once Upon a Time in China solidified his dominance in Asia. After directing films in Hollywood, Tsui returned to Hong Kong in the mid-1990s and expanded his reach globally with films like Iron Monkey and Time and Tide, which reinvented the Hong Kong action genre for international audiences.
From 2011, Tsui ventured into 3D filmmaking with films like Flying Swords of Dragon Gate and Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon. His film The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D earned him the Best Director award at the Golden Rooster Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards.
Other notable achievements were co-directing and co-producing The Battle at Lake Changjin, a record-breaking Chinese film that garnered Best Directors and Best Film awards at the Golden Rooster Film Awards. Most recently, his film Septet: The Story of Hong Kong, was an Official Selection for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, and his adaptation of the classic Jin Yong novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes was released in 2025.
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