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Watch 'Irma Vep' Online Streaming (Full Movie)

Irma Vep

1996, Movie, 1h 39min

Olivier Assayas’s live-wire international breakthrough stars a magnetic Maggie Cheung as a version of herself: a Hong Kong action movie star who arrives in Paris to play the latex-clad lead in a remake of Louis Feuillade’s classic 1915 crime serial LES VAMPIRES. What she finds is a behind-the-scenes tangle of barely controlled chaos as egos clash, romantic attractions simmer, and an obsessive director (a cannily cast Jean-Pierre Léaud) drives himself to the brink to realize his vision. Blending blasts of silent cinema, martial arts flicks, and the music of Sonic Youth and Ali Farka Touré into a hallucinatory swirl of postmodern cool, Assayas composes a witty reflection on the nineties French film industry and the eternal tension between art and commercial entertainment.

Country: France

Director:

Cast:

Reviews

Critic David Parkinson

rated

It's not totally necessary to be au fait with French cinema history to appreciate Irma Vep, but it doesn't half help.

Read full review at Empire

Critic Marc Savlov

rated

Bizarre and beautiful...

Read full review at The Austin Chronicle

Frequently asked questions

What is Irma Vep about? Toggle content

In the film Irma Vep, directed by Olivier Assayas, Maggie Cheung plays the role of Irma Vep, a character inspired by the titular anagram for "vampire" from the classic silent film Les Vampires. The movie is a remake of the 1915 French silent film classic, set in Hong Kong. The main character, Irma Vep is a burglar and spy who wears a skintight black and latex catsuit. The story takes a turn around René Vidal an ageing film director who is struggling to relaunch his career, He sees Maggie Cheung as the perfect lead for his film and casts her as Irma Vep during a troubled production. However, things take a chaotic turn when Vidal's personal life gets in the way of work. Suspicions arise when Maggie wanders off alone at night while out with coworkers; it turns out she has donned her cat-suited costume and committed a string of robberies as "Irma Vep and left for America to work on a Ridley Scott film. The movie ends with unanswered questions about the future of production.