{mosimage}After Brockeback Mountain, director Ang Lee comes back to his native China to narrate a drama during the II World War.
In a couple of moments along the film I could not less than find comparisons between this new Ang Lee´s film and some others from the master Wong Kar Wai. Maybe this has to do with the appearance also here of one of the fetish actors for Wai; Tony Leung. His presence all along the movie is astonishing; an actor who does not need much than just the gaze of his eyes and the smoke running away slowly from his languid cigarettes to transmit a lot of passion. He is superb in the film, mastering all kind of roles of his complex character: husband, cheater, powerful military man, lover, cruel secret policeman… An incredible palette! Matching perfectly with him, the sensuality of Wei Tang, who makes her debut in the big screen. She looks totally lovely, transmitting innocence but also determination.
There are a couple of weak moments in the script, since the behavior of the gang of revolutionary students sometimes turns to be pretty annoying, but in general this is a classic great black dram that has nothing to envy to older films of espionage and twisted love relations.
One bad feature is that the film is in Chinese with only Nordic languages subtitles, not including English. I hope someday in the future the distributors will understand how important is to include at least always the English option in every DVD released internationally. Apart from that detail, the film is enjoyable, but be also ready to assist also to some scenes of high sex voltage.
Rating 4/5.