I have to view the movie twice, once by reading the subtitles, and the second time to enjoy the movie itself. When I was reading the subtitles, I found "Flowers of Shanghai" boring. When I focused on the film itself, it was actually a nice movie. I could feel the opium filled air, the emotions of the characters were buried under the smokes. Only a small number of Chinese-speaking audience would have no need to read the subtitles because the dialogs were spoken in a specific dialect.
Review of Flowers of Shanghai
