Review of Lust, Caution (2007) by Adamm. — 23 Jan 2008
A lot of the subtlety are possibly lost on viewers who aren't familiar with the idea that there are many Chinese languages, which is perhaps one reason they complain about the first half being boring, or limp as the Salon reviewer wrote.
The heroine was originally from Shanghai (speak Shanghainese) was posing as someone who grew up in Hong Kong (speak Cantonese). With no exposure of the other language an native Shanghainese (a person that is born in Shanghai) wouldn't understand a word in Cantonese (as in the language), and vice versa.
In one scene the heroin and the wives were listening to ??, an art form that originated from Suzhou, a province that borders Shanghai. Suzhou's culture and language is v similar to Shanghai while quite different from Hong Kong's.
You can see the heroin was tense all through, pretending that she doesn't really know anything a word of it. The equivalent in terms of European languages would be a Portuguese girl posing as a French girl, sitting through a Spanish play while pretending that she doesn't understand a word of it.
This review of Lust, Caution (2007) was written by Adamm. on 23 Jan 2008.
Lust, Caution has generally received positive reviews.
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