CHINESE ODYSSEY
aka TIAN XIA WU SHUANG

Year: 2002
UK: ICA Projects
Cast: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Faye Wong, Vicki Zhao, Chen Chang, Roy Cheung, Athena Chu, Rebecca Pan, Jan Lamb, Fai-hung Chan, Goo-Bi GC, Eric Kot, Jing Ning
Director: Jeff Lau
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Mandarin (English subtitles)
UK: 97 mins
UK Release Date: 15 October 2004 (Limited Release - London)

Synopsis

From the director of The Hong Kong box office hit ALL FOR THE WINNER, which created the Hong Kong Style absurd comedy genre comes CHINESE ODYSSEY, an extravagant and delirious send up of the Shaw Bros-style period martial arts films and familiar with the tropes of Wong Kar - wai, who obviously enjoyed the joke so much that he produced the film himself.

In Ming Dynasty China, two pairs of siblings are destined for each other. But fate throws countless obstacles in the path of their happiness. One pair is high-born: the young Emperor and his sister Wushuang, both confined to the Imperial Palace and very much under the thumb of their mother, the Empress Dowager. The other pair is decidedly lowborn: the wanderer Li Yilong and his sister Phoenix, who still runs a restaurant in Meilong.

When both the young Emperor and his sister Wushuang escape the Palace and head south, where they meet the loves of their lives in Meilong. But Wushuang has disguised herself as a man, and the Emperor is incognito. Numerous confusions, complications and misunderstandings ensue. Gender-roles are reversed, class differences prove hard to negotiate and identities and egos block the promptings of desire. It takes the interventions of a goddess to get everyone back on the right road. But is it already too late to heal the wounds of disappointment and separation?