Shanghai Triad (R)
IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; Sony Classics; StudioCanal; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; iTunes; Vudu; YouTube

This is a Chinese film from 1995, which I didn't see until 2013. It's set sometime in the 1930s. A 14-year-old country boy named Shuisheng comes to Shanghai, where his uncle Liu gets him a job working for a triad. Well, not exactly for the triad; he'll actually be the servant of the Boss's mistress, whom everyone calls "Miss," played by Gong Li. (The subtitles on the DVD I watched said her name was actually Bijou, though I don't think anyone actually said that in the movie. Wikipedia says her name was Xiao Jinbao.) For the first few days, Miss doesn't seem very nice. I don't blame her for getting annoyed at Shuisheng, as he really seemed ridiculously ignorant of pretty much everything. But she could have been a bit more patient with him. Anyway... we do eventually see a more sympathetic side to her. And, she was a singer in a nightclub. I thought she was good, but I got the impression the only person in the movie who liked her singing was Shuisheng. (And later, Ajiao.)

After a few days, several members of the Boss's triad are killed by a rival triad, run by a guy named Fat Yu (who until then had seemed fairly friendly with the Boss). One of the victims was Liu, and the Boss himself seems to be pretty badly hurt. So he and some of his people, along with Miss and Shuisheng, go to a small island where they should be safe. The only other inhabitants of the island are a widow named Cuihua and her 9-year-old daughter, Ajiao. Out of boredom, Miss sort of befriends the woman and girl. Her interaction with them didn't seem very sincere at first, but she begins to soften toward them. And then... more bad things happen, which I don't want to spoil.

The majority of the movie really didn't seem much like a gangster movie. It's really more about Miss, who's kind of a complicated character, and not just the self-centered, pampered jerk she seems at first. And it's kind of about Shuisheng, and how he eventually comes to care about her. But, throughout the movie, Shuisheng barely speaks at all; mostly he just observes everything going on around him, and most of the time he doesn't really seem to entirely understand what he's observing. But anyway... there was some gangster stuff, aside from the attack that first prompted everyone to go into hiding on the island. The end... is not pleasant, but at least it's genuinely gangster-y. And I dunno what else to say. It's probably not something I'm going to find greatly memorable, but it wasn't a bad story. And certainly it had some nice visuals, not the least of which was Miss herself....