Reviews

Please, don't get me wrong. I love Ang Lee. I have not yet seen a film from Lee that I didn't like, and this is no exception. Still, I don't find this the best of those I've seen by far.

Chalk it up to cultural distance if you like, but this film seemed a bit trite to me. The archetypes seemed too basic.

I love Chinese action films, and this wasn't one. This was a drawn out love story with a subtext of action. The uninitiated might believe that this represents Chinese Action well. To them, I'd reccomend the John Wu film, "Hard Boiled."

Meanwhile, the character story was too drawn out. The singular jump to the past was confusing because of its length combined with its singularity.

If I had to guess, I'd say this is a classical Chinese story set to film. This is China's "Braveheart." Therefor, without the cultural investment, we are left somewhat dry.

All this said, the film is universally enjoyable. What it lacks in action, it makes up in emotion, and vice versa. It's an emminently watchable film. It's just not a classic. At least not to my ignorant American eyes.

With little action, and almost no gore, this Aussie crime film is a masterwork of emotional manipulation. The movie is divided almost perfectly in half: the first devoted to our natural democratic disdain of the police, and the second devoted to our natural fear of the sociopath. By the end, we aren't sure of anything, except that there really isn't anyone to route for in this story. We are left only with an all too accurate picture of the tenuousness of our fragile lives, the horror of the sociopath who resides among us, and the feelings of the watchers on whom we begrudgingly depend to protect us from them.

This is Silence of the Lambs as a "point of view" picture. This is your daily fears and nightmares come alive inside your seemingly safe living room. At once I apologize and consent to recommend this picture for all above the age of eighteen.

THIS FILM IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN! Though there are few scenes of specific violence, the emotional character of the film is VERY disturbing.