Chinese/ Chinese dialects

In a class of its own

A professional production with a seductive theme music. Lust, Caution the movie is essentially a character study of the female protagonist Wang Jiazhi - the events that propel her downward spiral into a life of deceit and desire, outlining in subtle detail the step-by-step moulding of her motivations.

As a passive drama student, Wang joins an amateur resistance group because of peer pressure, but soon finds herself unable to resist and leave the group despite the emotional stress and sexual abuse that the cell members expect her to endure.

One can't help but see a parallel between the character and the actress Tang Wei. Both are brave actresses with great mental strength when it comes to cooperating with the cell members and movie crew respectively to stage the rape and ultimate death of Wang the character. In the end, I find myself more intrigued by the enigmatic Tang Wei than the character she plays. How much more complex are her feelings towards her involvement in this film which entails participation in intimate sexual postures while exposing herself to the rest of the world? Regardless of Tang's actual state of mind, the circumstances in both the reel and real world has utterly dehumanised both the character and the actress for me.

Wang reminds me of Nicole Kidman's character in Dogville, I would definitely be interested to watch both again to make a comparison. But simply because of the actual R-rated scenes present in Lust, Caution and, as I perceive it, its unique relationship with both character and actress, I find Lust, Caution a more provocative film, and a more repulsive film.

The one and only Hong Kong flm that left a lasting impression on me. You can find the synopsis at http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews/mad_phoenix.htm

I'm not too enthusiastic about melancholic China movies in general, which is the direction that this movie is headed in its later half.

The story is simple enough. Kuankuan's aunt, otherwise nameless, is a middle-aged Chinese woman who is proud of her accomplishments (speaking in a British accent and painting among others) yet mindful of conventions and values of civic mindedness. She strives above all to live a poor yet dignified life, so that she can keep her head high among her richer but coarse neighbours.

Unfortunately China is fast progressing and Shanghai is the city of decaying morals, even if Aunt is staunch in keeping to the old values. She discovers too late the pragmatism of her employers, the amorality and duplicity of the people close to her and her all too exploitable trusting and kindly nature.

Still retaining some of the idealism of youth and unable to adapt to the changing times, Aunt is well placed as the character that is doomed to fail. Fall she does into a downward spiral of unfortunate events that will take away the very identity that she has fought to build for herself. The postmodern life of aunt shatters irresistably in the face of gritty reality. While slow and somewhat choppy, the movie does convey the painful transition beset on aunt fairly well.

However, there remains gaps in the storyline that I can't quite reconcile with Aunt's character. For example, if Aunt was truly a kindly person, why did she leave her daughter to go to Shanghai?

Still although I didn't enjoy the movie that much, it was interesting to see Chow Yun Fatt and Zhao Wei in their respective roles. The music was good too.

Good movie to bring kids to, if you have kids that is. This movie is mostly funny but adults, being the wrong target audience, may come out disappointed. Must say the child actors did a great job in this film.

Despite the exotic location, the tried and tested star artistes, this film falls into the could have been better category. Fairly slow, cliched, ending is expected and action scenes fail to satisfy.

Based loosely on the chinese classic Three Kingdoms, the movie takes a lot of creative license to retell the story of a remarkable man. The movie by itself is average.