《红粉》是一部由李少红执导，王姬 / 王志文 / 何赛飞主演的一部剧情类型的电影，特精心从网络上整理的一些观众的影评，希望对大家能有帮助。
《红粉》影评(一)：红粉
苏童＋李少红，柏林银熊，金熊提名，被遗忘的好电影。记得以前看这个片子就特喜欢，时隔多年再看，依旧喜欢。
颠沛的人生，哀伤戳人。喜欢老浦，喜欢秋仪。喜欢王志文、王姬、何赛飞这三个优秀的好演员，情感游韧、韵味十足。喜欢里面的吴侬软语和评弹，还有苏州乡下的老宅。
人的命运真是很奇妙的东西，你无法预知未来，更无从知晓归宿。从感伤的秋仪到唏嘘的老浦，对这部电影前后20年的情感体验竟截然不同。
日子怎么都是过，无论过去、现在，和将来，生活永远都是与你如影随形的空气、阳光和水，多不堪多艰难，也不能不要。放弃了，就什么都没了。命都没了，自尊和脸面还算个什么。
《红粉》影评(二)：我人生的第一部电影
当年很小 模模糊糊看的
还没被新中国和谐的旗袍、尚存的老资本家、带着锁的红色木柜子、
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很多年后，读苏童的小说
我常常在想，建国只是一个时刻性的点儿，可是为什么，在我们的印象和认识中，建国前后，人们生活的气味是截然不同的，在我的脑海中则是无法连接起来。一瞬间，人们的生活的气息发生巨大的改变是不可能的，那么那些一点点发生中的变化，是很吸引我的。这个电影的原著小说，写的是一个片段。
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至今难忘
先是版权之争，这是当时报纸上公开的：小说出来之后，苏童先卖给了李少红两口子，结果审查不通过，没拍成。两年后苏童又卖版权给姜文和刘晓庆，两人很高调地宣布要拍摄，李少红很生气，打官司到电影局，最后李赢了。
审查折腾了好久之后，又缺钱，据说某制片主任威逼一个倒钱能手（那时还没有投资一说，所谓能手是有本事从银行搞到贷款，而自己却不在银行工作，也不开公司，我至今也不明白此人的真实身份）给投资，结果花了大概两百五十万人民币，完成了。花絮是王姬的片酬是六万元人民币，当时出钱人觉得给多了。
这时倒钱的没钱了，就卖给了出钱的买主，卖价三百八十万。朋友们纷纷认为其不识货，应该卖个好价钱或者自己成立公司搞发行。
买家就是大洋影业公司，这片子大概是其第一次出品。刚才想起来去GOOGLE这个当年大名鼎鼎的民营电影公司，最近的消息是2007年歌剧《秦始皇》引出的版权之争，这个公司还拍摄过《秦颂》，然后好像就默默无闻了。
想起来挺好玩，捡来一个宝贝，造就了一个公司，却还是没有持续性发展。至于那个神秘的出资者，连个字幕都没有出现，就这样悄悄地作了贡献，如今我努力地想啊想，怎么都想不起他叫什么了。
可由这部电影拉至现在：
独立、神秘气质〈榴莲飘飘〉、〈苏州河〉、〈小武〉，还有随便举几个吧。
再想想吧。
：
或者说，我能用过的草稿本都用过了。
在这里打草稿，至少可以虐待一下大家，好让我被虎妞压迫的同时，有一点虐待人的快感。
wow，豆瓣真是个打草稿的好地方。
《红粉》影评(五)：改造
以小萼为代表的妓女，她生在妓院里，从来不觉得当妓女有什么不对，她就像所有生在封建里的人，看起来都是受苦受难，可是他们觉得日子就应该这样过，都是皇上欺压，还有那么多为皇上死的人哪
小萼贪图享受，所以不愿意自食其力，宁愿卖身为生，就像现在一样有那么多妓女，都是自愿当的，没人压迫照样有妓女
新中国已经变得和旧社会一样了，因为社会变了，人没有变，人本性里的，几千年文化里的，没有变
再说到女人，妓女其实是极致的女人，把女人骨子里的一切发挥到极致
女人就是不独立的，依靠男人的，爱美色的，也许是几千年男人给她们的，但是已经根深蒂固了，从旧社会到新社会，男女本质没有变
为什么更独立的秋仪没有得到老普，而小女人小萼得到了？男人吃这一套
以秋仪为代表的妓女面对的是社会惯有的歧视，表面上说人人平等，其实都是旧思想
而她也容不下这个社会
她宁愿当尼姑也不愿意当工人，尼姑是旧社会的，我当的也是旧社会的尼姑！
她和新社会奋战了一场，最终妥协
里面还有很多改革不掉的东西，比如老普的富家子习气，他当了工人也没变成工人
比如麻脸对小萼的歧视，歧视永远存在，改革只不过变成了无产阶级歧视资产阶级
还有很多讽刺的地方，比如日本人开枪，解放军一样开枪，比如老普家都是好人，却被抄了家
还有许多有意思的细节，比如老普妈说我年轻时候比你苗条，因为那个时候妓女尚胖，老普妈的意思是，我没你那一身卖的肉
但也有不少肯定新社会的地方，比如麻脸在旧社会看不起病，新社会就不会有她这样的人了
他是三十年以后，日子比现在好，可是三十年以后社会就变成他那个时候，旧社会的社会了
没有知道新华会长成什么样子，但是秋仪和新华在一起，日子还不错
《红粉》影评(六)：墙头
在苏童的小说《红粉》中，写到秋仪和小萼被解放军从翠云坊拉去查性病那一段，秋仪拉着小萼逃到“小木房的后面”暂避，“小木房后面也许是士兵们解决大小便的地方，一股强烈的尿噪味呛得她们捂住了鼻子。她们没有注意到茅草丛里蹲着一个士兵，士兵只有十八九岁，长着红润的圆脸，他一手拉裤子，一手用步枪指着秋仪和小萼，小萼吓得尖叫了一声。她们只好走出去，押车的军官高声喊着，快点快点，你们两个快点上车......”在原著中，秋仪后来是从卡车上跳下去逃走的，搬上电影后，凸现秋仪希望决定自己命运的这个情节改为直接从小木屋的窗口翻身出去了，随即便消失在墙头。
去年曾在苏州陆巷古村的一间木楼上随手拍下一张照，日前看李少红根据苏童小说拍摄的电影《红粉》，见片中有些许外景颇眼熟，又看到秋仪翻出去的那间木屋，拿出去年照片来仔细比对，果然是一处。
李少红1994年拍摄《红粉》，曾在陆巷古村及周边借景。04年我去时村中古居尚未对外，07年再去时业已开放了，从照片看与十三年前的影像有五处明显修缮：秋仪翻过的窗原是长方形的，后来向左挖成了正方，故而窗与左墙距离较之前窄，并加了木板；右旁八角小窗亦加上了六角形木框；右侧整排窗都已换过；屋顶与墙头结合处也向下加了木板，位置接着大窗；左墙上曾有木柱，后被拆除。又，电影中机位于房间偏左后角所摄，我们进房间时门在右，站在靠右后角，因此照片同影片中窗外墙头风景有很大偏移，照片中偏左，影片中偏右。
我记得当日在窗口向远处张望，但见连墙接栋，阳光朗朗。未知与此地相关还有这样一个令人怅然的故事。而昆剧《墙头马上》中，李千金与裴少俊私自结合的结局就不至于那么悲凄，虽有波折却终得破镜重圆。我小时候趁父母不在，曾以手撑墙翻过门上副窗到他们屋中偷连环画《墙头马上》来看，佳人小立粉墙，才子马背相望，印象极深刻。直看到结局一句：愿天下有情人终成眷属。去年看到戏剧频道有放早期录制的老片《墙头马上》，才知此剧是昆剧。曾看过的连环画，想起来正是剪此剧分镜头编辑成册。
李千金在墙头找爱人，功成名就。最可怜是秋仪，她后来叹道：早知道命运还是让人走投无路，倒不如那时不跳墙头了。
或许在墙后的都不是些想规矩做人，屈从现实安排的人。曲曲折折的廊，高高低低的墙，有太多故事在此出演。墙头又总有诱惑，譬如《拍案惊奇》的二刻卷三十四中，权臣杨戬的馆中门客任君用被捉奸墙头，甚为狼狈，又说“一枝红杏出墙来”、“路柳墙花”、“逾墙窥隙”，可见墙垣难以阻挡那些不安分的心，反倒还添增了半遮半掩的情色意味；或“隔墙有耳”，墙这边事为那边的有心人所窃取；或人事浮动“祸起萧墙”；或软弱如泥“扶不上墙”；甚至窝里相争“兄弟阋墙”；自招灾祸“引水入墙”；见风使舵“墙倒众人推”——无一不是人心作祟。今过苏州，频见吴中以为特色之一的墙头和落在粉白壁上的影子，恰似人心弯弯直直明明暗暗，一时间想起许多墙头轶闻来。
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《红粉》影评(七)：幸福还很远
最近辞了工作闲在家里，为着打发无聊时光写起小说。我那不太好看的小说的主人公是位性格刚烈的风尘女子。有看客说：秦淮出的女人不是应该温婉动人丝丝柔情么？这般有个性的大多后来成了人物。说来也怪，这话没令我想起马湘兰或者李香君，倒是想起《红粉》里的秋仪和小萼来。
1994年，距离李少红从苏童手里买来《红粉》原著的改编权已经有两年。迟迟不过的审核因为版权二卖而引发的一场官司被顺水推舟。也因为版权的事儿，李少红憋着口气，咬着牙叫着劲急匆匆拍完了全片，送到柏林真的拿回个银熊。
苏童的故事是好的，乱世里情爱痴缠背负着宿命感的无奈。不过在李少红的影像里，畸形社会被描述的少了残酷。电影基本还原了原著，但缺少了主心骨，故事讲得有些散漫。江南古镇实地取景，扑面而来的水乡温柔。中景镜头的构图如画，只是生硬了些，使得片子不算流畅。
不过，李少红选的三个演员选真好。他们就是从苏童小说原著里走出来般，没有比这更合适的配置。有那么几年李少红对王姬似乎有着特别的青睐。大概在李少红眼里 那些个遗世独立，些许自恋，活在自己世界里，个性鲜明的女子就应该是王姬这般模样。于是在《红粉》秋仪之后，电视剧《雷雨》也找了她，这次作的是繁漪。几场秋仪和老浦耳鬓厮磨的戏看得芳心荡漾。那时候的王姬真美，蓬勃的绽放着，艳丽的肆无忌惮。公子哥老浦王志文，彼时正当红。他本瘦削的外表显得弱不禁风。再加上精湛演技，说气话来彬彬有礼几分儒生气韵，单眼皮的双眼时时刻刻流露出些俗世轻飘。老浦如是。至于那逼着老浦走了绝路的天生贱货小萼，即便过了这许多年，你真的找不到比何赛飞更适合这个角色的演员。娇柔婀娜，眉眼乱飞，时常梨花带雨，真是谁见了都要怜爱几分。何赛飞那一口吴侬软语都与小萼这角色严丝合缝着。
故事里的两位主人公秋仪和小萼，前者是刚烈，后者是柔情。
刚烈的秋仪放在今天是御姐典范。“嘿！我这倔脾气”为人生口头禅，太想活出真我风采来。翻窗而出，逾墙走，以为这样就能逃离？傻！时代变革的乱世里，一个女人独活太难，于是秋仪投靠了心爱的男人老浦。她心里想着两人终于可以常相厮守，谁知竟是黄粱一梦。男人大抵都是不太可靠的，守着忠义孝悌四个字，但却用下半身思考。“女人一旦没有钱财就只能依靠男人，但男人却不是可靠的”秋仪早就明白这其中道理，不过她想赌一次。终究是个女人，秋仪和所有女人一样即使明知没有好结局也要把自己溺死在情爱里。
刚烈的女子大多有情有义。秋仪喜欢老浦，于是老浦每次来翠云坊寻她，她从不受半毛钱。她觉得雨水恩情离了金钱买卖便成了纯粹的爱慕，是爱情。小萼在劳教所里改造，秋仪无法在其身边保护安慰，就从物质上丰富。这是秋仪的姐妹情深。即便后来，老浦和小萼睡在了一张床上，秋仪成为尴尬存在。可她仍出现在两人婚礼上，真的是有心祝福，无心送“伞”的。真情实意愿好。电影最后，秋仪在老浦行刑之前去监狱探望，句句声声是过往，说到后来一切释然换作相视而笑。伞倚着墙立着，这下真的散了，情呢？最后的最后，秋仪收养悲夫，奉献一生抚养旧情人和好姐妹的孩子，所有情爱和情谊凝结，结成大义。
秋仪看似活得放纵洒脱，为人强势笃定。其实她一生都自卑着，在执著地寻找一份精神上的皈依来安抚心中的无助。时代步伐是无法阻止的洪流，人不过是微细如尘的存在罢了，只有随波。她给小萼和老浦的儿子改名新华，也是对过去的道别。靠男人渡河，求佛祖蔽护，都不如靠着自己。
相比秋仪，小萼要单纯简单的多。她怕吃苦，只求过上阔太太的舒坦日子。弹棉花的工作完成不了，便去寻死？才不是呢，她是忍不了血泡的疼，挨不住起早贪黑的苦罢了。她不觉得当妓女的日子不堪回首，甚至觉得那是她此生的最幸福时光。接受改造，改不掉的水蛇腰，“天生贱货”。抛了姐妹，勾引老浦，和老浦无休止的吵架，把儿子送给秋仪，跟着个男人去了北方…一幢幢一件件，小萼才是卯着劲儿的追求幸福呢。
软弱怯懦如小萼，她无法靠双手实现自己的欲求。小萼谁都不爱，她只爱自己，一生所求就是找个依靠，少吃点苦。
这是大时代的悲歌一曲。永不凋零的花朵开在时间静止的图画中。飞蛾扑火，荆棘刺胸，都说美好历练在深痛巨疮里，只是值得么？无论秋仪还是小萼，她们都身世飘零如浮萍，想抓着棵稻草换来安定。但是，人生苦短。痛苦那么长，幸福看似很近其实远在天边。
《红粉》影评(八)：第34名：《红粉》——影史50部平民史诗
人面不知何处去
《红粉》 年代：1994年 / 国家：中国 / 导演：李少红 / 主演：王姬、王志文、何赛飞
有一部电影叫《中国最后一个太监》，讲的是在清王朝结束之后，那些被赶出紫禁城的太监如何过普通人日子的故事。片中有个场景是已被阉割的来喜，遭到戏班的伙计们捉弄，到妓院里跟一个妓女共处一室，那女人一摸就心里有数了，为了不折他的面子，故意在屋里叫床给屋外的伙计听。其实妓女跟太监一样，肉体的残缺让他们的灵魂也被浸染了俗世的偏见，往往在社会转型期，这类边缘群体总是会率先成为时代的牺牲品。
《红粉》当中的转型期是1950年，从旧社会向社会主义新时代过渡时期，这“新”体现在新制度、新思想和新作风上，旧社会的糟粕都将被全面清洗和摒除，就连喜红楼的妓女们也都被划入社会主义改造的行列里。解放前靠身体挣钱的妓女，如何在新时代里寻找自我认同感，社会又将如何接纳她们，这是我们好奇的地方，不过影片在后者问题上只是轻描淡写地略过，但对于前者，则是把重点放在了两个比较极端的个例身上：秋仪和小萼。同是女人，她们却各有各的不幸。
从秋仪在影片中出现开始，就带着一种自命不凡的自傲，在解放军面前，她还不慌不忙地提丝袜，披着呢子大衣，买块烤红薯，上船前还要让人搀，一副没褪去的大小姐气。如此娇惯的她，怎么受得了人民军队对她“收编”呢？。所以她逃走了，找到了她的旧情人老浦。两人一见面就干柴烈火，不用说，日后在老浦家，秋仪就继续用她的肉体，来换悠闲安逸的生活。从这个角度来看，其实秋仪做的跟解放前的事并无异。按理说这也是门不错的买卖，可秋仪养成的公主病，让她不作就难受。老浦为了服从老妈的安排，只能打算把秋仪安排到外面住，秋仪一听立刻炸了庙，她绝不能被撵走，除非是她自己走！走投无路之下她只好剃发为尼，皈依佛门，然而此举也不能帮她超渡困苦。她怀孕了，又流产了，又因为老浦，跟好姐妹小萼分道扬镳了，还俗后的她几乎失去了对生活的热忱，如行尸走肉一样毫无生气。
同样是No zuo No Die的小萼，从进入教养院起就陷入巨大的不安中。她尝试过自杀，也试图逃走，但都没有成功。然而出了教养院，也不意味着她从内心全盘接受新时代的事物，她心里还惦记着吃西餐，听留声机、喝咖啡这些早已消失的洋玩意儿，对于同志也不太友好（比如跟“马脸”吵架，还扬言报复）。她的大小姐脾气也同样不小，在老浦家不但用脸盆当尿壶，还嫌自己没有戒指，骂老浦没有良心，一吵架就一哭二闹三上吊。坐月子的时候，还做着阔太太的美梦。为此两人彻底闹翻了，老浦几乎绝望地喊：“我自己作死！” 秋仪和小萼的作，归根结底是妓女在旧时代被老鸨压迫，卑微的身份和自命低贱，让她们自己都无法接纳自己。一旦条件变好了，她们就要变本加厉地得到那份原本得不到的关爱。但这却往往是饮鸩止渴，越陷越深。
身在其中的男人也难逃悲剧的命运。老浦其实就是个妈宝男，老妈不让他跟妓女同居，都得照听不误，除非是像小萼这样肚子被搞大了，才只能勉强奉子成婚。老浦对秋仪不是没有爱，只是实在身不由己，资产被没收、秋仪头发剪了，让他只能把爱转向更容易得到的那个人：小萼。可是在婚姻里他又被嫉妒和失去耐心折磨到濒临崩溃，不仅喟叹：“拿你们这些女人真是没有办法！”周旋在姐妹俩中的男人难免被骂“渣男”，但有的渣男也有良心发现的时候，他为了补偿秋仪，给她送去了一大笔钱。不过，这钱却是贪污公家的，挖一个坑来填补另一个坑，后果只能是自掘坟墓。为了贪图一份不亏欠的爱，他甘愿搭进一条命，难怪秋仪在老浦临死前专门赶去见一眼，神情凝重且复杂，眼里满是责问：这样，值得吗？
时间是前行的，人也被时代往前推着走。从前是过着富庶生活的阔太太们，到了如今是人人平等、劳动致富的普通人，身份的转变带动心态的转变，如果不能及时适应这个社会，将会被历史的车轮无情地碾压在下面。有的妓女改造成功，进入工厂工作，有的还已经进入了婚姻，然而秋仪和小萼则是在倒转历史，逆时代而行，结果只能是太、惨、了，就连秋仪都说：早知道就不跑出来了。
这样一部以女性悲剧命运为题材的影片，由一位女性导演执导，她就是李少红。在这部影片中她一改之前《银蛇谋杀案》直接、凌厉的影像风格，转而变得富于诗意。还有一些人认为，李少红在这部电影中有意效仿张艺谋的《大红灯笼高高挂》，这两部电影同为改编自苏童的小说，编剧也都为倪震，且都有何赛飞出演，两者自然有着暧昧的联系。从效果来看，很多场景都采用了远景，并且画外音和入镜角色的不对等，的确很像张艺谋的处理手法，并以此来营造疏离冷淡的氛围。后来李少红也把这种疏离感放置在了《大明宫词》《橘子红了》《红楼梦》等电视剧中，树立了她独特的女性风格。
《红粉》影评(九)：Self-negation and the Redistribution of Body
Laopu/landlord Huang Shiren (黄世仁) is on the stage, accused by the ghostlike white-haired girl. Ghost or human, Laopu touches this ambiguous terrain no less than the accuser in a dramatic moment. Acting as a role he once belonged to in a broad sense of class, Laopu joins the trend initially against himself. Huang Shiren is chanting the political slogans with the audiences against himself and suddenly feels something wrong. Allegorically, this points to Laopu, who should have yet doesn’t feel anything wrong. What unravels here is the logic of self-negation in the phase of social transformation, which must be internalized and self-adapted in order not to always feel something wrong.
The logic of self-negation is for all, who and which are relegated to the remnants of the dark old society but are still retained the chances to regenerate, partially for the evocation of a reshaped subjectivity, and partially for the demonstration of a promiseful de-oppressive regime. The “labor camp” for the prostitutes is one of the apparatuses of this logic. In a closely watched space, former prostitutes are deprived of the right to live as before and even, the right to die, yet are endowed a self-supporting and dignified future life. The enforced space itself has already indicated that these women are taken as corrigible vermin, although they are ironically taught to ascribe their “sins” to the brothel madam or social mechanism other than the degrading fate during the pedagogy of “speaking bitterness”. In other words, the labor camp is designed to erase the structural inｓｃｒｉｐｔions of the feudal or capitalist society on the body and spirit of the prostitutes, but at a cost of implicitly duplicating the prejudices to them and negating all their past, their personal history except a good nature that hasn’t decayed totally. I’m not denying the seminal impact of this discipline, especially the redistribution of body, from the haircut, physical examination, regular routine and factory labor—every motion, every form or sign is politically considered--, which transforms the objectified body “for play” or “for sale” to the autonomous body for socialist construction. Indeed, life is not so bad for some of these reformed women. Nevertheless, I have to point out two problems remained. First, how can we really distinguish the transformed body, the labor in the factory with the capitalist production that reduces human to machine？ The great will of working for socialism or the bright scene in which these seemingly free women are running through the rape flower fields cannot explain all. Second, the pedagogical apparatus and public opinion push the former prostitutes to thorough self-negation, which reduces their past to nothing or dirtiness. For instance, in a scene Xiao’e is irritated by a forewoman who suggests the money she made before was “unclean”, and as a counterpunch Xiao’e declares that money is all the same and call her names later. That’s how the traditional discrimination for prostitutes slips into the conjuncture of the new logic of self-negation. “Unclean”, this is a too rough generalization for the complicated situation of subjectivity and feelings of the prostitutes. To some extent, strategically, it is precisely this kind of thorough negation that leads to the impossibility of the reformation, because no room for the past, no empirical agreement for the future.
ack to the specific details in the movie, I want to future stress the bifurcate of Qiuyi and Xiao’e: For Xiao’e, does the labor camp really change something？ (Also, we don’t know whether the former prostitutes are married to the former clients.) Or rather, is the self-negation effective on her？ For Qiuyi, escaping from the negating process of the labor camp qua an entrance to a new social life, what is left for her in the society？ We see another direction of redistribution of body— To take tonsure, give up her hair that is cherished as a feminine character (versus the haircut of the disciplined ones) and become a nun. But where she comes back to at last is still the symbolic position of Laopu’s embrace, the only position having something to do with an acceptable past.
《红粉》影评(十)：来自歷史學家贺萧(Gail Hershatter)的評論
Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in. Twentieth- Century Shanghai. Berkeley: University of California Press,. 1997. xii + 591 pp.
原書396-8頁，翻譯本《危險的愉悅》409-11頁。
Moving into politically more volatile territory, the 1994 film Blush (Hong fen), by the renowned woman director Li Shaohong, offered an oblique comment on the limited success of the 195os campaign to reform prostitutes. In the film's opening sequence, Qiuyi and Xiao'e, two Suzhou courtesans, are rounded up for reform. Disdainful of the entire process, Qiuyi stops to purchase a sweet potato, commenting that "even a condemned man gets a last meal." She escapes from the reform institute immediately upon arrival and goes to live with one of her customers, a gilded youth named Lao Pu. Xiao'e remains incarcerated. Frustrated by the hard work of bowing cotton in the institute factory, she tries unsuccessfully to hang herself.
In one of the film's most interesting moments, Xiao'e's political instructor urges her to tell her "classmates" that she attempted suicide because she was worn down by the oppression and exploitation of her past life as a pros- titute. Without directly contradicting the instructor, Xiao'e makes it clear that it is not the past that troubles her: rather, she is afraid of the future, exhausted by the work, and uncomfortable because of blisters on her hands. Undaunted by Xiao'e's refusal to draw the proper political conclusions, the instructor then goes on to tearfully recount what is apparently her own story. She is the daughter of a prostitute who sacrificed to put her through university, yet it has taken her many years to get over her shame at her mother's occupation and to appreciate her efforts. Communist reformers are not pilloried or satirized in this account-in fact, the reform campaign is treated sympathetically--but it is clear that the attempt to impose a single narrative of oppression on a heterogeneous group of women is doomed to fail.
The remainder of the plot (which is based on a story by the popular young male writer SuTong) is worthy of a first-class soap opera. Like SuTong's story Raise the Red Lantern, which became a prize-winning film by Zhang Yimou, Blush contains enough inconsistencies and problems to annoy feminists, historians, and assorted other viewers. Qiuyi's liaison with Lao Pu during her stay in his family's house is incoherent: the two use each other mercilessly in an exchange of protection for sexual pleasure, then suddenly and inex- plicably discover their undying love for each other long after the liaison has ended. By that time Qiuyi has left Lao Pu in a fit ofpique, become a Buddhist nun, discovered she is pregnant with Lao Pu's child, miscarried, and mar- ried an older teahouse keeper whom she does not love. Meanwhile, Xiao'e is released from the reform institute, works briefly in a factory, quarrels with a woman who implies that she is still a prostitute, and marries Lao Pu. In the process she metamorphoses rapidly from petulant prostitute to sweet young worker and back. Xiao'e and Lao Pu are unhappy together; they fight continually about money, and Xiao'e exhibits what the reformers would undoubtedly call an unreconstructed courtesan's mentality, demanding material goods and throwing tantrums.
Ultimately, Blush is not a story about reform at all. Rather, the author and filmmaker regard the 195os reform efforts as a safely distant treasure trove oflong-ago times, to be mined for interesting dramatic material rather than contemporary political lessons. And the film's success-it won the Silver Bear award at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival-suggests that such material will find a receptive audience in the international artistic realm as well.
In these late twentieth-century reconstitutions of the past, prostitutes were multiply deployed: as figures in Republican China's interconnected social ills, as important historical figures who contributed to the nation's cultural heritage, as worthy subjects of elite male observation and writing, as exemplars of traditional female virtue, as sites of nostalgia and popular entertainment, as subjects incompletely reformed by the state. But perhaps something more was promised as well. As the editor's introduction to the reprint of Hell on Earth explained, "Through this book, longtime Shanghai residents can arouse their childhood memories; young people can see the bizarre and motley character of old Shanghai, and sense the health and prosperity of new Shanghai; social historians can find material they need; psychologists can rely on it to research the particular states of mind of the people who were active in those circles; linguists can make use ofit to investigate changes in Shanghai dialect."18 The reissue of courtesan novels was meant not only to facilitate research, but also to restimulate individual memories that might well have been buried under the state's master narrative of twentieth-century history. At the same time, although the introduction expressed the pious hope that young people would appreciate the contrast between the bad old days and the healthy present, the book itselfaimed to make available to them a textured and colorful body of knowledge about the past, one that they might well use to fashion their own understanding so fold Shanghai, of their own heritage, of their own Chineseness. Prostitutes were important figures in this reach for a new and improved past, making it likely that the meanings of prostitution will continue to be re-created and negotiated in China as elsewhere.