Center Stage

Center Stage is a Hong Kong drama from 1991 that recounts the life of Ruan Lingyu, the actress who became the foremost star of Chinese silent cinema. The film follows her path from a teenage debut in Shanghai to the height of her fame, and the troubles that surrounded her public and private life. Stanley Kwan directs, working from a screenplay by Chiu Kang-Chien, and the production mixes dramatic reconstruction with archive material and scenes of the cast and crew reflecting on the story they are telling. Maggie Cheung plays Ruan Lingyu, with Tony Leung Ka-fai, Carina Lau, Ronald Chin Han, Lawrence Ng and Cecilia Yip among the supporting cast. Produced by Tsui Siu-Ming, Willie Chan and Jackie Chan, the film runs 155 minutes.

The film came after Kwan's Love Unto Wastes and Rouge, placing it third among the six features he has directed. Audiences have received it well over the years: on IMDb it holds a rating of 7.4 from roughly 3,100 votes, while on TMDB its score is 7.3 from a much smaller pool of 94 votes, so the two broadly agree, with the larger sample giving some weight to the IMDb figure.