STANLEY KWAN KAM-PANG has fallen out of love. It's not about his relationship with his long-time partner, which he says has reached a tranquil intimacy. The subject of of his spent passion is the muse behind some of Kwan's most acclaimed movies: Shanghai.
The city's elegiac charms are gone, Kwan says. The city may well be undergoing an economic and cultural renaissance, but much has been lost beneath all the glitter and glamour. 'It's true that Shanghai is in the midst of rapid economic development,' he says. 'March along Huaihai Zhonglu [one of the city's major thoroughfares] and you see skyscrapers with stunning facades. But once you venture inside all these model apartments, you see the real thing. The quality is so bad ...'
He trails off - one of several times he's unable to articulate the frustration and fury he now feels about a city that even a decade ago he said he'd happily move to if he left Hong Kong.
It's hard, after all, to disparage a city to which he once paid homage in films such as Centre Stage and Red Rose White Rose.
'We asked a lot of elderly tai-tais [who were aristocrats before communist rule began in 1949] about Shanghai through the years,' he says. 'They said the Cultural Revolution had a large impact, but the damage wasn't irreparable. As long as you adapted, kept your head low and steered clear of offending people, you could get through all those years.
'They said the economic reforms and opening of markets had a much more devastating impact on Shanghai and China, as a whole. Things that could be hidden from the Red Guards are now all washed overboard - gone forever.'
