Still image from the 1996 film Irma Vep.

Irma Vep

Directed by Olivier Assayas

Maggie Cheung, acting out her own role as one of the greatest stars of Asian cinema, comes to Paris to portray Irma Vep (the character created by Musidora) in a remake of the famous series "Vampires" directed by Louis Feuillade between 1915 and 1916. She does not speak a word of French, and therefore everyone is forced to speak to her in broken English--especially her somewhat incomprehensible, has-been director, Rene Vidal, who sees Maggie as the unique incarnation of a modern Irma Vep.

1996 1h 36m Comedy TV-PG

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CAST
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0

Olivier Assayas, Director
6487|0
Olivier Assayas
Director

1

Jean-pierre Leaud, Rene Vidal
110505|0
Jean-pierre Leaud
Rene Vidal

2

Nathalie Richard, Zoe
161148|0
Nathalie Richard
Zoe

3

Maggie Cheung, Maggie--Herself
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Maggie Cheung
Maggie--Herself

4

Bulle Ogier, Mireille
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Bulle Ogier
Mireille

5

Lou Castel, Jose Murano
30631|100680
Lou Castel
Jose Murano

FULL SYNOPSIS

Maggie Cheung, acting out her own role as one of the greatest stars of Asian cinema, comes to Paris to portray Irma Vep (the character created by Musidora) in a remake of the famous series "Vampires" directed by Louis Feuillade between 1915 and 1916. She does not speak a word of French, and therefore everyone is forced to speak to her in broken English--especially her somewhat incomprehensible, has-been director, Rene Vidal, who sees Maggie as the unique incarnation of a modern Irma Vep.


VIDEOS
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Alicia Malone Intro
Hosted Intro

ARTICLES
Movies about movies have been a staple of the screen since the earliest days, when D.W. Griffith directed Mack Sennett in Those Awful Hats (1909), a two-minute short about movie theater etiquette. Hollywood poked fun at itself in films like Singin' in the Rain (1952), while other pictures decried the inhumanity of the business, as in The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928), and used the filmmaking process to explore the tenuous link between fantasy and reality, as in The Stunt Man (1980). In his first international success, Irma Vep (1996), writer-director Olivier Assayas managed to do all of that and more. Irma Vep is ostensibly about the making of a new version of Louis Feuillade's classic silent serial Les vampires (1915-16), the story of a criminal gang whose chief operative is Irma Vep (an anagram for "vampire"), a cabaret singer and expert at disguise, theft and murderer. Once-prominent director René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud) has hired Hong Kong action star Maggie Cheung (playing a version of herself) for the female lead despite complaints from co-workers that the role is quintessentially French. Cheung arrives for work three days late, having been committed to a Chinese film that ran over schedule, to find a company in chaos as they attempt to keep up with Vidal's demands. Not knowing any French, she can only communicate with those production members who, like her, have a basic knowledge of English. As production staggers along, Cheung finds herself roma...

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