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White Countess, The

Striking sets and photography cannot make up for this slow-moving James Ivory film in which a blind, morose, and widowed American diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) dreams of opening a popular nightclub in Shanghai with a Japanese friend (Hiroyuki Sanada) despite the political unrest in 1936 and then becomes unexpectedly drawn to and uses as his muse a stunning Russian noblewoman (Natasha Richardson) working as a lowly companion dancer at a dancehall to support her young daughter (Madeleine Cooper) and other displaced relatives (Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, et al.).
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