After watching "Maid of Manhattan" recently with Natasha Richardson(RIP) and Ralph Fiennes, I decided to give this film a go. I thought the film was so so good. However I don't understand why Fiennes had to put an American accent onto this because he can't do a Amercian accent!! I always thought as the blind English Diplomat not American at all! They either should've got someone better or written the character off if they weren't going to get the character development right among the actors! Anyways moving in, I loved how himself and Richardson's relationship developed throughout the whole film. The story- line was sad because it was set in near World War 2 and the fact people running for their lives to Japan (I think)in order to be safe from the soldiers. Omg one scene that even more frightened me as well was, when Fiennes character met with the soldiers face to face. I really thought they were gonna shot him right on the spot but thank god, he made it out alive and let him go without hesitant!I really liked this film, it really shows the history of China and it had a good cast to entertain us with their fine acting. I give this movie 8/10!

This is one of the very few films i have ever seen in my life where i was forced to give up, concede how bored i was, and just TURN IT OFF. The opening credits are beautifully tantalising and gave me much hope but that was cut short pretty quickly. The Redgraves as Russians are laughable, the story is ultimately banal and the writing is lacklustre. The Remains of The Day was an exceptional film but this is just trying too hard to be something it hasn't a hope in hell of achieving. Ralph Fiennes is dreadful and both Fiennes & Richardson are equally unattractive in their conventionality. Yeuch. The film desperately wants to be Casablanca or something with deep poetry in its veins and fails miserably. Really awful.

Warning! This review contains spoilers. It will reveal the end of the movie. If you don't want to know the end of the movie, don't read this review."White Countess"' advertising is misleading. The poster depicts the very handsome Ralph Fiennes passionately kissing the very beautiful Natasha Richardson. "Echoes of Casablanca!" a review is quoted.Well ... no. This ain't "Casablanca," and it is not, primarily, a passionate love story."White Countess" is also not a deep or important movie. It's not saying big things in an aesthetically successful way.Really what it is is a chilly, stodgy, art class exercise. Script writer Kazuo Ishiguro has received highbrow critical acclaim, and he's trying to be smart and important here, and he fails.Basic story: exiled Russian countess Sofia (Natasha Richardson), in the post-Revolutionary, pre-WW II era, does taxi dancing, and perhaps also prostitution, in Shanghai. She thereby supports her miserable, scheming, whining, unattractive, lazy, parasitic family. Two members of the family are played by Richardson's real life family, Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave.Blind American Todd Jackson, (Ralph Fiennes) opens a new nightclub, and hires Sofia to be his hostess.Eventually, the Japanese invade, and Todd, Sofia, her daughter, her Jewish neighbor and his daughter, escape on a boat.And that's it. Why does this story take over two hours to tell, and to tell coldly, leaving most viewers and critics surprisingly unmoved? Because it's all a big metaphor. Todd Jackson, blind American, who connives to get Japanese, Chinese, thugs, socialites, in his bar, is a symbol of America. He's always smiling, and he seems like a nice guy, but he keeps messing with foreign affairs.It is revealed, through flashbacks, that he used to be a diplomat, and was involved with the League of Nations. He befriends Matsuda, a Japanese man and, what do you know, the Japanese invade Shanghai. Those d*** Americans, scriptwriter Ishiguro implies; if only they didn't mess with things, the Japanese wouldn't have committed all those atrocities in China.Yeah, it is that silly. And pseudo-deep.Also, Jackson is attracted to Sofia, as he states in so many words, because she is a beautiful woman with a tragic past. That arch, intellectual distance from any spontaneous human emotion, any real human contact, is the tone of the entire film. It's like an abstract painting, pushing the viewer away from any involvement with the characters.Given what an art class exercise and mind game this movie is, it was utterly dishonest of the filmmakers to advertise it as a romance for the ages.Fiennes and Richardson kiss once, and it is awkward and unpleasant. "Casablanca"? I don't think so.The sets are lovely, though. They do convey a sense of Shanghai in a perilous moment.And the performances, for what they are, are great. Natasha Richardson does a very nice Russian accent. She plays her part -- that of a stupid, bullied, and thereby unappealing Russian countess, well.Fiennes is a phenomenon. I don't know if his performance here should be praised or dissected. His American accent is very good, and his phony smile never fades. But his performance is in service of a cypher, not a real part, not a real human being, and a plot that is didactic and pretentious rather than in service to telling a human story.

The poignancy of this movie outweighs any shortcomings in the directorial department. I found myself immersed in the milieu of 1930's ShangHai, a place and time I had only read of and subsequently wondered about.The real strength of this movie is the accessibility with which powerful emotion is portrayed. I found I had real empathy for the characters.The characters were played superbly by one of the most pedigreed casts I've seen in a while.The pace was slow, but measured and well-suited to the plot.Ralph Fiennes was a convincing lead -- the image of him reminds me of TS Eliot mixed with Rick Blaine (Casablanca).Natasha Richardson is brilliant in this role. Understated and quite believable.All in all a beautiful, other worldly movie, and not for the faint-hearted.