I had no idea this movie would be so good; I knew nothing and hoped for the best. What a stunning surprise! In all parts. The cast could not have been better: Vanessa R, too! Every actor is who they are. The story is only what it should/can be, with no effort, and no artifice of any kind. How many movies do we see like this? It's an unexpected treasure.

Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson make an unlikely pair of first business partners then lovers in The White Countess. Richardson in the title role is an exiled Russian countess who couldn't make it west to places like Paris, so they went east and she wound up in the foreign quarter of Shanghai.One has to remember that before 1949 all the western powers and Japan had carved out spheres of influence for themselves where their law was supreme. No Chinese government was able to do anything about that since the British made the first move with the Opium War of 1841.It is here that Ralph Fiennes a blind American former diplomat has made his home. He's pretty much disillusioned with the world and what western imperialism has done to it. It's his ambition to own an elegant place like Rick's in Casablanca where the rude awakenings of the world he helped make can be kept outside.Part of that plan is that he needs a woman of class to front for him and who better than a Russian Countess who like the rest of Russian aristocracy supported the Whites against the Reds and lost all. She's doing what a girl has to do to survive and support her family. But Richardson does it ever so elegantly.I'm sure the current Chinese government was more than willing to have a foreign film company shoot a film in Shanghai showing a bad period in their country's history. Old Shanghai is marvelously recreated by the Merchant-Ivory team.This was a Redgrave family project with mother Vanessa and aunt Lynn to Natasha Richardson appearing as other Russian White exiles. Soon two of them would no longer be with us.Fiennes and Richardson give some finely etched performances as people who need each other professionally and personally to make it from day to day. They are an unlikely pair, but who's to tell them?Not the best Merchant-Ivory film, but pretty good.

I wanted to like this movie, given the cast, the time period of it, and the decent IMDb rating. I see someone gave it ten stars. Sadly, it is another case of a movie being too highly rated in my opinion. There were several problems with this movie. First, the pace was so slow and the premises were mostly unbelievable. Perhaps one could believe that a blind diplomat could start a nightclub with a woman he has never seen(after conveniently winning money to do so), but has some sort of idealized fantasy about. But their relationship and non-relationship is convoluted and makes little sense. He is her employer and a patron in some way, and they are also friends, ...sort of...in so far as she is not allowed to discuss her home life and things that make break the mental illusion he has of her. If anyone had such a relationship, its hard to imagine that it would be spoken of. I love Ralph Fiennes. He usually has such a capacity for depth and nuance. I did not believe in this character, however, or what he was trying to achieve. It was Ralph being himself, without there being much character development. I found him the entire enterprise uninteresting. I couldn't even recommend this film as something a Ralph Fiennes fan should see in order to admire his performance. Of slightly more interest was Natasha Richardson's character, who I at least found interesting and inspired some sympathy. However, for most of the film, nothing developed in her circumstances. Despite my love of historical drama, I would not recommend this.

The White Countess is a film directed by James Ivory that features Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson together with Vanessa Redgrave,Hiroyuki Sanada,Lynn Redgrave,Allan Corduner and Madeleine Potter. The screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro focuses on a disparate group of displaced persons attempting to survive in Shanghai in the late 1930's.Todd Jackson is an American expatriate living in Shanghai. While Jackson was once an American diplomat who came to Shanghai with great optimism about China's future, the bitter political squabbling and military violence that are a part of daily life in China caused him to become bitterly disillusioned. Jackson also lost most of his sight, and he has retreated into Shanghai's decadent underworld of bars and brothels rather than face the world. When a wager on a horse race wins Jackson a small fortune, he decides to indulge a long-time fancy and build the perfect Shanghai bar, one that would ideally reflect that corrupt beauty of the city, and he is joined in his project by Matsuda, a Japanese man with a mysterious past and an appreciation for Shanghai's underbelly. While assembling his pet project, Jackson meets Sofia, a Russian countess who fled her home during the revolution and now lives in Shanghai, supporting her family as a dance-hall girl and occasional prostitute. In Sofia, Jackson discovers a fusion of beauty and tragedy that fascinates him, and he asks her to become the hostess at his new bar. As Jackson becomes closer to Sofia, his cynicism begins to wear away and he develops a deep concern for Sofia and her family.This is a beautiful and moving film.But sadly,it falls short of being a great one because it never allows us into the hearts of its primary protagonists.Its high production values and fine performances should be credited but its lifeless story will fail to engage the viewer.