I had hopes for it, and it opened beautifully. It promised introspection, scope, meaning, and a bit of beauty, yet the first three were still-born, and the last ruined by triteness. But, the expected revelation in this movie never came. And in the mean time, Gong Li was incredibly annoying the entire film, due to her successfully acting the part of the spoiled singer flirt. I used to enjoy watching her, but after this torture, not any more. Why see this, when you can see Temptress Moon, which was richly embroidered with meaning, and did have scope, and it not only met, but exceeded propounded expectations? Sadly, Shanghai Triad has a superior video cassette box, since it is a film of superior marketing, but drastically inferior plot, scope, characters and quality.