Ba ge nu ren yi tai xi

First Night Nerves is a backstage melodrama about two veteran actresses who have a complicated relationship since one took the other’s place in a production long time ago. The return of Stanley Kwan is a very incisive, funny and emotional look at the Hong Kong show business world. The main characters here are played by Sammi Cheng and Gigi Leung as the two actresses who are co-stars in a play, but do not talk to each other. But Kwan opens the picture to include agents, assistants, theater and film directors, festivals, dead husbands, sons and daughters, journalists and fans. The new film of the director of Rouge describes this Hong Kong celebrity world of fame, jealousy and scandals with the wisdom of someone who knows the inner workings of this system inside and out. And the frantic pace of a filmmaker who not only knows how these things work but also how to use the tropes of classic cinema to create a complex, believable and emotional story of two women who don’t realize they have much more in common than they think. (Viennale)