Director Peter Chan plots the film with a mix of Mandarin pop songs, Broadway dances numbers, and a love triangle. 　

About the Film 　　

The story itself is simple. With its backdrop in present-day Shanghai, a female film star Sun Na (Zhou Xun) runs into her ex-lover, Lin Jiandong (Takeshi Kaneshiro), also a famous actor on a movie set in a circus troupe. But, the actress is now together with the director Nie Wen (Jacky Cheung). Lin Jiandong harbors mixed love and hatred for Sun Na, and plots to take revenge to her for ten years of waiting after she left him to chase her dream of being a star. 　　

The three characters struggling in the circus troupe movie happened to suffer the same triangle in real life. 　

The Moments 　　

The easy-touching scenes are romance pieces which happen between Sun Na and Lin Jiandong in Beijing, when Sun was a girl with no money, making a living by performing erotic dancing in the Sanlitun bar street area, and Lin was a poor student in film academy. 　　

Especially under the lens of photographer Christopher Doyle, scenes are tender and sensitive, such as the hug on the ice along the moat, the young couples enjoying a hot pot in her dark but cozy basement apartment, and the street restaurant with mist-covered window. 　　

Other scenes like Lin Jiandong sinking himself in a swimming pool and his teardrop falling under the water also generate lots of tears for women audiences. 　　

Dance and Music 　　

Director Peter Chan invites celebrated Bollywood choreographer and dancer Farah Khan to design the Broadway-style dance numbers set in Old Shanghai in the movie. And, the result turns out to be quite good. 　　

Dancers including the star - wanna-be Sun Na - show off sexy thighs wrapped by tight dresses with long slits and cheap gold-sequined costumes, singing sarcastic and relentless stage songs at Shizi Crossroad, a kind of red-light district. 　　

More impressive parts of the musical take placed in the carnival-like circus troupe performance. 　　

Perhaps it cannot compete with Moulin Rouge or Singing in The Rain; but still, it is good enough to boast as one of the most dazzling and extravagant musical movies in Chinese film history. 　　

Jacky Cheung’s voice also deserves much credit. He is the only professional and veteran singer in the music industry for years to have four leading screen roles and his own stage musical “Snow Wolf Lake” proved to be a great success. 　　

This time, Cheung impresses his audiences with musical songs in Broadway-style. The other three lead roles also give all their best and do not disappoint audiences at all.