Wild, Wild Rose is one of the best musicals in the history of Hong Kong cinema. A musical noir, the film is noted for its expressionistic mise en scene and sharply staged set pieces realized by director Wang Tianlin. The tale of a nightclub singer who seduces a straight-laced piano player and then falls fatally in love with him, the film is a revival of the songstress films that were very popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Yet the title character is nothing like the generic lasses of sad melodies and feeble dispositions that had dominated Mandarin cinema just a few years back. Instead, the Wild Rose is every bit her name evokes. She is a tempestuous temptress – beautiful, openly sexual, romantically aggressive but cynical. Her glorious exploits take her through a ride as tumultuous as the ferocious swings of the film’s tunes, eventually landing her in a fate as tragic as the songstress of old, returning the film to the genre’s humble beginning.