One of my all time favorites.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Those who love Hong Kong films know Maggie Chueng. She has been in 89 films like Police Story, 2046, Hero, and Ashes of Time. This is her international debut.Jean-Pierre Leaud (The 400 Blows) plays a quirky director that chose Chueng to play Irma Vep in a remake of the 10 episode Les Vampires. She doesn't speak French, so this makes for both comedy and resentment.Chueng is luminously erotic in this film about film making, encased in a shiny black latex like Catwoman. Cheung goes along with the lunacy around her, and even participates at one point.Bizarre and beautiful, this take on independent film making shines with Chueng.

I feel downright churlish for not going completely crazy for this funny/sad look at movie- making -- specifically the rather absurd, doomed remaking of a real French classic, by an aging, out of style art-house director, starring Hong Kong action heroine Maggie Chung, who plays herself delightfully. I enjoyed the film; its sort of a complex 1990s 'Day for Night', with a paradoxical and sometimes confusing point of view about the nature of art and the state of film. But I couldn't see it for the masterpiece a number of intelligent critics gave it credit for being. Jonathan Rosenbaum, the terrific critic from the Chicago Reader wrote a very long, in depth analysis that went right over my head, and then added insult to injury by implying that people who don't see the film as a deep investigation of the evils of capitalism, and the meaning of ART are somehow shallow. I'm also surprised by the number of people who take the ramblings of an obnoxious reporter character in the film about the death of French art cinema as being the film's point of view on these issues. To me the film isn't taking sides, and seems to be gently satirizing, and yet embracing all of film. Good natured, well acted, and occasionally brave (but also occasionally obscure) I quite enjoyed this and it did provoke some thinking. But I couldn't see it as the super deep film some did. For me, it was fun, but the ideas are far less deep or radical then critics seem to want to give them credit for being.

I just watched Irma Vep last night. And I have to say that I enjoyed watching this movie for many reasons. Evidently Maggie is one of the reasons. Beautiful of course and good actress to boot. But beyond that, we have a lot of other things that kept my interest alive all along. This movie presents a self examination of French movie making, thereby justifying the accusation of "nombrilisme" (narcissism) by the reporter interviewing Maggy. This seems to be one of the themes here. A close look at the movie making process in France where a certain lack of coordination seems to be the rule, where a director launches the movie making only based on a whim. And in this case, it's the idea of having Maggie Cheung play the main role of a character in a remake of a 1915 silent movie. What really becomes interesting is the way she gets into the role and really becomes Irma. But I will leave you to discover how and when. At any rate, the movie has the funny effect to make you wonder if French movie making is in that bad a state that it can come up with such an interesting product.

Modern French cinema is far removed from the time when Louis Feuillade made his silent serial "Les Vampires". In 1915, the war had stifled the French film industry, as elsewhere, and thus the international dominance of Hollywood since. "Irma Vep", a film about filmmaking with all the self-reflexive jesting, owes more to the New Wave of several decades later.In it, a director plans to remake the nearly seven-hour long silent serial "Les Vampires", and he plans to remake it as a silent film, to boot. Casting a Hong Kong action star in the lead was the most rational decision he made. Here in lies the absurd humor of "Irma Vep". It's a clever idea, although a recycled one. I especially like the use of a silent serial, as I've seen many silent films (although I don't care for "Les Vampires" or serials in general). Anyhow, there are some good pokes at the modern French film industry; quibbles over the uncomfortable coexistence between commercial, popular movies (which would include "Les Vampires") and the artsy, government-funded ones (which would probably include "Irma Vep"); and French filmmaker stereotypes are exploited.The comicality is hit or miss, but that's not what I consider the film's major problem. I think the subplots (the lesbianism, personal affairs and such) detract from it. "Irma Vep" lacks focus, just as with the film within the film. The various story-lines and the film's style stray far from the path, but the problem is there doesn't seem to have been much of a path to begin with and, in the end, we get images from a completely unfocused mind.