Product Description

Hong Kong action superstar Maggie Cheung (Police Story) plays herself in Olivier Assayas' brilliant satire of the movie industry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81717 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-03-31
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Amazon.com
In the tradition of films about filmmaking, Irma Vep takes its own special place among such films as Fellini's 8½. A has-been director decides to remake the silent French serial film Les Vampires starring a Hong Kong action film superstar. The production is falling behind schedule and its star, Maggie Cheung (who plays herself), finds herself an outsider with the film's crew save for a woman costumer (Nathalie Richard) who has a crush on her. Rene the director (Jean-Pierre Leaud) cast Maggie after viewing one of her many martial-arts fantasy films. Although he finds her perfect for the part of the jewel thief in Les Vampires, the rest of the crew cannot see the reasons for casting Maggie beyond her beauty and how she looks in her tight-fitting latex costume. Rene's vision is soon lost on everyone and he suffers a mental breakdown. The film is reassigned to Jose (Lou Castel), a seemingly more commanding director (although he takes the job because his welfare is about to run out), whose first decision is to fire Maggie. Irma Vep is presented as a comedy, but at its heart lies an examination of the art and craft of filmmaking. In a clever turn, Maggie creeps around her hotel getting into character, in essence remaking Irma Vep for real-life director Olivier Assayas. Assayas wrote the film in 10 days and shot the film in a month after meeting Maggie Cheung at a film festival--a fascinating case of life imitating art... or is it the other way around? --Shannon Gee

Customer Reviews

Great Misunderstood Film
Irma Vep elicits two reactions from different groups of people: nay sayers who view it as yet another boring French film and people who focus on the film-about-a-film. I think it is seriously misleading to view the film in either of these lights. Irma Vep should be viewed as a series of short films, tied together by the "plot" of the film. Each mini-plot is fascinating and together make the film wonderful.

If you don't know, Irma Vep is a movie about a Hong Kong action star (Maggie cheung) who arrives in Paris to do a remake of a 1915 French film about the French underworld. The director is losing his emotional stability and eventually the crew unravels. A lot has been said about the "film within the film" aspect of the movie, so I won't say more. What I think is fascinating is how the director tells a number of stories within this strange plot:

- The crash and burn of a film crew
- Zoe, the costume designer who is attracted to Maggie and she is rejected
- Maggie's desire to indulge in her criminal fantasies
- the director's strangely engaging mini-film

Since all this takes place in the middle of chaos, it can be hard to appreciate at first. There is really no beginning or end of the film. It is abrupt, which I think must reflect the experience of someone who arrives in the middle of turmoil. But each mini-plot is lovingly filmed and well acted. It also helps a great deal that Maggie Cheung is an attractive actress who can really carry well while wearing a latex suit the director insists she wear. The rest of the cast puts in a great performance as well, which allows you to engage with the other characters. On top of that, the film has lots of great shots - the weird footage at the end, Maggie sneaking through the hotel, the obligatory French dinner party, an incisive slam on the French film indusrty, etc..

Definitely worth it for people who can tolerate unusual plot structures and who enjoy beauty in unusual places. Check it out.

Irma Vep or Eerma Wep? Who cares in this friendly, eccentric movie about making a movie?
What the world needs is a movie about producing a book. You know, the creative angst of the author as he tries to remember when to use "which" and when to use "that," the nasty arguments over choosing a typeface, the dust jacket tantrums about artistic integrity if both boobs are shown or just one, the cattiness of the editors and, perhaps most insightful, whether the proofreading will continue to be the night guard's responsibility during his dinner break or whether the delivery boy from the next door deli should be given a crack at it.

Until that movie is made, Irma Vep will have to do. Please note that elements of the plot are discussed but there are absolutely no spoilers here or in the movie. Irma Vep is a movie about making a movie and it's stuffed with angst, pettiness, tantrums, ego and confusion. Taken on one of its own terms -- is it any good just as a movie -- the answer in my opinion is a loud "yes." Forget all the inside cineaste stuff (it is French, after all) and you may find that Irma Vep is funny, not just clever. It's good-natured with a friendly performance by Hong Kong kung fu heroine Maggie Cheung playing herself. Most of all, it is so eccentric a movie I seldom could stop smiling.

Rene Vidal (Jean-Pierre Leaud), an aging New Wave director now well past his sell-by date, is planning a comeback. He'll re-make a long, long and long ago silent movie called Les Vampires, a movie about a gang of criminals who prowl and stalk. One of them, in a skin-tight black body suit and black mask, is named Irma Vep. She will be Vidal's inspiration. He has just the star in mind to play Irma...Maggie Cheung. Maggie, who doesn't speak French, shows up in Paris ready to work. Cast and crew snipe and argue in many mini-dramas. Vidal collapses. Cast and crew snipe and argue some more. Maggie, an outsider and quite taken by the black latex outfit she and the costume designer, Zoe (Nathalie Richard) picked up cheap at a Parisian sex shop, whiles away the time one night by creeping about her hotel wearing the suit. Like Irma Vep, Maggie sees things in the hallways and rooms, some worth taking, and then there is the nighttime rain and the high, outside fire escape leading up to the hotel's roof. All does not go well for the movie. Eventually Maggie leaves for New York to take a meeting with Ridley Scott.

Not much there, I know, except for director and writer Olivier Assayas' amusing style and Maggie Cheung's bemusement and lithe creeping. There is much pleasure in Assayas' take on movie making and movie people, but the pleasure for me comes from noticing how I came to rather enjoy and like all those behind-the-scenes groupies, workers and jerks. The dish, of course, is amusing. "Directors thrive on hypocrisy," says one. "Yeah," says another, "but sometimes they go overboard." The interview between Maggie and a young, intense film enthusiast is priceless...John Woo versus Jean-Luc Godard. The film enthusiast has strong opinions about both. Maggie doesn't.

Maggie Cheung gives a sweet center to this movie, but I liked just as much Nathalie Richard as Zoe, the lean, blonde, tentative, cigarette-smoking, girl-liking costume designer. She's past her prime if you're a teenage boy, but right at her peak if you're an adult of either sex.

Film lovers might enjoy one message. "Cinema is not magic. It's a technique and a science. A technique born of science and at the service of a will, the will of the workers to free themselves." Got that? Essayas manages to combine the idea of movies (popular entertainment) and film (a much more deadly serious concept of the movies) in a way that is eccentric and engaging. Film insiders and hopeful film insiders just might love this movie. Yet as funny and eccentric as Eerma Wep is, it's still just a movie by a talented director about making a movie. If you like movies and are relaxed about "film," I think you'll enjoy it.

This DVD issue by Zeitgeist has a very good picture.

a movie buff's film, and truly multicultural
This movie has a casual, tossed-off feel, (it's rather different than Assayas' other pictures, which are hard to see in the U.S.) It's slyly funny about Parisians and their various neuroses and obsessions. Maggie Cheung is charming and, though she doesn't say much, she projects intelligence and good-natured resourcefulness. I disagree with the comments that this is a racist movie; rather it is about how the world is getting smaller and more multicultural. Worth a look for it's picture of contemporary filmmaking.