Haunting films by Hong Kong’s Stanley Kwan

Old friends were very much on the mind of Stanley Kwan, the Hong Kong art-house filmmaker who has made a career out of tragedy, regret and haunted pasts, during a Skype conversation last week.

The talk turned to “Rouge,” his 1987 ghost story starring Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung, two of Hong Kong’s biggest stars ever, as tragic lovers in a melodrama that plays out after death.

Twenty-nine years after its release, it’s a rock-solid classic and one of two films — with “Center Stage” — Kwan is bringing to this weekend’s annual Hong Kong Cinema festival at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema.

Kwan will open the San Francisco Film Society’s three-day festival in person at 6:15 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, by presenting a 25th anniversary screening of “Center Stage.”

The film stars the radiant Maggie Cheung, who won best actress at the Berlin Film Festival for her portrayal of tragic Chinese silent film star Ruan Lingyu.

The weekend is mostly made up of current Hong Kong cinema, including new films from big-name directors Fruit Chan (the thriller “Kill Time”), Sylvia Chang (the sibling drama “Murmur of the Hearts”) and action maestro Johnnie To, whose “Three” closes the festival at 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 25.

Part of the reason for his lack of work is the uneasy transition for Hong Kong art-house directors to the current mainland Chinese market.

“In the larger environment in film financing, China is more market-driven,” he said.

Kwan had conceived of “Center Stage” as a vehicle for Mui, but Mui refused to set foot in China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, which happened some months before production began.

[...] for two full weeks before shooting began, she showed up at my office, and our art director would change her look, change her makeup, redo her eyebrows and ask her to walk for two, three hours a day from one side to the other side.

“Center Stage” is the film Kwan is most proud of in his distinguished career.

Samuel Fuller — “A Fuller Life”: Samuel Fuller, the iconoclastic filmmaker known as much for his brash machismo as for his great films such as “The Steel Helmet” and “The Naked Kiss,” is celebrated in person at two Bay Area theaters this weekend by widow Christa Lang-Fuller and daughter Samantha Fuller, who presents her new documentary about her father, “A Fuller Life,” as well as a retrospective of his work.

[...] featured is a program of shorts (6:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23), which includes this year’s live-action Oscar short film winner “Stutterer,” and “Mickeybo and Me,” a free kids’ screening at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24.