The White Countess (2005) on Netflix
PG-1320052h 15mDramaHistoryRomance
In 1930s Shanghai, Countess Sofia Belinskya supports her exiled Russian family by working as a taxi dancer. She meets Todd Jackson, a blind American diplomat who dreams of running a nightclub.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.5/107,368 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes49%
Trailer
Plot summary
Countess Sofia Belinskya fled Russia after the revolution and lives in 1930s Shanghai, where she works as a taxi dancer in a bar. Her earnings support her daughter Katya and her late husband's aristocratic relatives Olga, Grushenka, Princess Vera and Prince Peter, who live off her wages and treat her as unclean. Katya alone defends her. At the bar she meets Todd Jackson, a blind former American State Department official, and urges him to dance.
Cast
- Madeleine Dalyas Katya
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The White Countess (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ismail Merchant had worked with Kazuo Ishiguro before, on The Remains of the Day; asked to adapt Junichiro Tanizaki's novel The Diary of a Mad Old Man, Ishiguro instead wrote an original screenplay based on his obsession with Shanghai.
- The White Countess was the last film for producer Ismail Merchant, the Merchant Ivory producer, who died shortly after principal photography was completed.
- Because 1930s Shanghai survives mostly among modern skyscrapers and neon, production designer Andrew Sanders built many of his sets on soundstages and, blocked by Chinese import restrictions, made do with materials found in the country.
