Boring and incomprehensible - but nice photos
Added 11/20/2009
This film seems to receive exaggerated regard because of the famous director, Ang Lee. I'm sorry but - in actuality this is a pretty boring, hard-to-understand movie. All the bowing down to Ang Lee aside - this emperor has no clothes. Following up on Brokeback Mountain, which was for Americans, Lee seems to be giving the next one to his Chinese public.
The best thing about the movie is the lovely photography of WWII Shanghai, the fashions and sophisticated upper class lifestyles depicted. For 100 years, Shanghai was almost a European city. But the story is disturbing and unsatisfying; a young girl is made a spy to seduce and bring down the head of the Chinese secret police collaborating with the Japanese occupiers, a man who personally tortures captives from the resistance movement, whose first sex with the girl is a brutal rape. And who wins out in the end because she supposedly falls in love with him and can't bear to see him killed. So he kills her instead. Nice.
The movie is culturally VERY Chinese and spoken in the Chinese language with subtitles. As a result Westerners are certainly missing many subtle clues. This is probably why the actors seem so wooden and hard to believe. Tony Leung's take on the sadistic Mr. Yee, who starts out his sexual relationship with the young girl by assaulting her, is to remain expressionless throughout. By this we are supposed to understand he is a deep thinker? This all reminded me of Japanese movies in which "love" is depicted as a reason for tears - love and tragedy, go together like peanut butter and jelly, that's an Asian theme. Which is very wierd.
Much has been made of the NC17 sex scenes but these are also boring and not at all erotic. Any transformation in the girl's attitude - from offense at being raped at the beginning to supposedly passionately sharing - is left completely undeveloped. The movie simply does not explain her emotions in any way I could detect. What was it she even liked about the guy? That he fell for her? Big deal. At the end, her saving Mr. Yee at the cost of betraying her friends and herself to torture and execution is difficult to comprehend or accept. It just seems the gesture of a stupid girl who let her emotions get the best of her and forgot what kind of snake she was dealing with.
One of the only really intriguing moments is after the girl and her cell of resistance fighters is captured and Yee's second in command reveals that the security police had known about them all along. When Yee asks his underling why he was not told this, the answer is that Yee himself was suspected by his colleagues of cooperating with her through their relationship. If this tension had played a bigger role in the movie, there would have been some drama.
Once again, the movie is made for a Chinese audience who will understand more about the significance of rape and the odd distance between men and women in Asian culture, and the association of sex with violence and love with pain. To you or me, the movie is just period eye candy with a depressing ending. And if you want to watch sex, you can do much better elsewhere.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
AN EXCELLENT MOVIE
Added 10/10/2009
THIS MOVIE WAS REALLY GOOD, IT HAD SUBTITLES, HOWEVER, AFTER WATCHING 10-15 MINUTES, YOU FORGET THE REST OF THE MOVIE ABOUT THESE. ACTING SUPERB, STORY LINE HOOKS YOU AND KEEPS YOU TO THE END. VERY TRUE TO LIFE. GET THIS ONE!!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
China's War in the Thirtys
Added 10/3/2009
An excellent movie. 5 stars. Well acted, directed, cast, filmed and with great locations thrown in. If not for the R rating it would Oscar material. About the Japanese invasion period. Students at a college form a cell and plot against the collaborators who help the occupation. Some violence and nudity but fine acting throughout. Chinese with subtitles. Best I've watched in a long time.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Very good
Added 9/22/2009
Like a lot of Chinese movies the ending isn't like we in the west would like to see but its real life. Not always easy to swallow but more people should see how life can be and end. I recommend this to anyone who is open to sexual situations. It doesn't show much but it is a gripping movie with some violence to boot. Nothing hear is graphic its more like a true story turned into a movie. The acting is top notch you would think it was done in Hollywood. The movies now coming out of HongKong and China are very good.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
a master piece.......immaculate
Added 8/29/2009
me sister, me girl friend, even me aunts still cries when the heroine sacrifices herself for love.
mr ang lee must have done a really really fine job. ^_-
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Boring and incomprehensible - but nice photos
Added 11/20/2009
This film seems to receive exaggerated regard because of the famous director, Ang Lee. I'm sorry but - in actuality this is a pretty boring, hard-to-understand movie. All the bowing down to Ang Lee aside - this emperor has no clothes. Following up on Brokeback Mountain, which was for Americans, Lee seems to be giving the next one to his Chinese public.
The best thing about the movie is the lovely photography of WWII Shanghai, the fashions and sophisticated upper class lifestyles depicted. For 100 years, Shanghai was almost a European city. But the story is disturbing and unsatisfying; a young girl is made a spy to seduce and bring down the head of the Chinese secret police collaborating with the Japanese occupiers, a man who personally tortures captives from the resistance movement, whose first sex with the girl is a brutal rape. And who wins out in the end because she supposedly falls in love with him and can't bear to see him killed. So he kills her instead. Nice.
The movie is culturally VERY Chinese and spoken in the Chinese language with subtitles. As a result Westerners are certainly missing many subtle clues. This is probably why the actors seem so wooden and hard to believe. Tony Leung's take on the sadistic Mr. Yee, who starts out his sexual relationship with the young girl by assaulting her, is to remain expressionless throughout. By this we are supposed to understand he is a deep thinker? This all reminded me of Japanese movies in which "love" is depicted as a reason for tears - love and tragedy, go together like peanut butter and jelly, that's an Asian theme. Which is very wierd.
Much has been made of the NC17 sex scenes but these are also boring and not at all erotic. Any transformation in the girl's attitude - from offense at being raped at the beginning to supposedly passionately sharing - is left completely undeveloped. The movie simply does not explain her emotions in any way I could detect. What was it she even liked about the guy? That he fell for her? Big deal. At the end, her saving Mr. Yee at the cost of betraying her friends and herself to torture and execution is difficult to comprehend or accept. It just seems the gesture of a stupid girl who let her emotions get the best of her and forgot what kind of snake she was dealing with.
One of the only really intriguing moments is after the girl and her cell of resistance fighters is captured and Yee's second in command reveals that the security police had known about them all along. When Yee asks his underling why he was not told this, the answer is that Yee himself was suspected by his colleagues of cooperating with her through their relationship. If this tension had played a bigger role in the movie, there would have been some drama.
Once again, the movie is made for a Chinese audience who will understand more about the significance of rape and the odd distance between men and women in Asian culture, and the association of sex with violence and love with pain. To you or me, the movie is just period eye candy with a depressing ending. And if you want to watch sex, you can do much better elsewhere.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
AN EXCELLENT MOVIE
Added 10/10/2009
THIS MOVIE WAS REALLY GOOD, IT HAD SUBTITLES, HOWEVER, AFTER WATCHING 10-15 MINUTES, YOU FORGET THE REST OF THE MOVIE ABOUT THESE. ACTING SUPERB, STORY LINE HOOKS YOU AND KEEPS YOU TO THE END. VERY TRUE TO LIFE. GET THIS ONE!!
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
China's War in the Thirtys
Added 10/3/2009
An excellent movie. 5 stars. Well acted, directed, cast, filmed and with great locations thrown in. If not for the R rating it would Oscar material. About the Japanese invasion period. Students at a college form a cell and plot against the collaborators who help the occupation. Some violence and nudity but fine acting throughout. Chinese with subtitles. Best I've watched in a long time.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
