Now I have to admit that I am a huge Maggie Cheung Man Yuk fan, thinking she is one of the best actresses in the world, and I did not think that my opinion of her could approve, and after seeing this my opinion of her has improved. No wonder that she won best actress at Cannes for this film. Wow, what an incredible performance and what an incredible film. Assayas tailored this movie for his wife (now ex-wife since she singed her divorce papers on the set) and what an incredible role. Not only that, but her English is absolutely perfect, and I hope that she can become the biggest actress in the world.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Maggie Cheung Man Yuk plays Emily Wang an French MTV type VJ who is with her run down musician boyfriend with whom named Lee Hauser who she is supposedly representing, but really feeding her and his heroin addiction. The two are not married but have a son named Jay (James Dennis) who is in the care of Lee’s mother Rosemary Hauser (Martha Henry) and father Albrecht Hauser (Nick Notle)They are both total junkies, and she makes it worse, fighting with him and scoring more heroin for them both. They have a horrible fight after she goes and scores some heroin, and she says she is leaving him and drives off and shoots up in the car, returning in the morning to police all around the hotel and Lee dead. the cops grab her and arrest her as she has heroin on her too. A friend of Lee’s puts a small record deal through so she has enough money to pay legal fees, and she pleads not guilty to supplying him with the drugs and gets 6 months for possession. When she is released ALbrecht comes to see her and tells her he and his wife have been given possession of Jay, and that they don’t want her to see him, even though she has the right. Albrecht gives her access to the rest of her and Lee’s joint money, though their isn’t much, and their apartment in London had to be sold. She decides to return to Paris where she lives before she met Lee, and try to restart her life. She works at a Chinese restaurant, but doesn’t do too well as she is still doing methodone and other drugs, and is always spacy. And then her drug connection overdoses, more death around her, but she still does drugs. She made a demo with a woman in prison and is trying to shop that around, as well as trying to get a job with various people from her past, but is only able to get a job at a department store because of her ability to speak so many languages. Meanwhile Rosemary is really sick so she has returned to England to go to the hospital and Albrecht is there with Jay as well. Rosemary hates Emily and has turned Jay against her, but Albrecht believes in forgiveness and also realizes he never took care of J or his son Lee, and so he won’t be able to take care of Jay on his own, so he contacts Emily and promises to let her have Jay for a weekend, though Jay doesn’t want to, but eventually agrees. In fact when Jay hears Emily can go to San Francisco to record her album that day, he wants to go and goes and gets his passport from the hotel, but Albrecht catches them, and makes a deal. If she goes and does the recording and comes back to meet them in London with Rosemary in the hospital, he will try and help her get back on her feat, and she agrees. Emily heads to San Francisco and records the album trying to get her life back in order.

This is an incredibly powerful film, and an absolute must see. It is too bad this is a region 3 DVD so more people can’t see it. You would think a best actress win at Cannes would mean more in the states, but it seems it really doesn’t matter. And I guess Nick Nolte isn’t a big enough sell either, which is also too bad, because he is great in this film. Oh well, I hope this leads to bigger and better things for Cheung Man Yuk, though she hasn’t been in anything since this and 2046.