Cheap The Lover (DVD) (Jane March, Tony Leung Ka Fai) (Jean-Jacques Annaud) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of The Lover

L'amant simplement
Most people miss the boat in viewing "The Lover." It is a semi-autobiographical novel based purely on memory of a young girl's first sexual awakening - so do not expect an effective visual translation of written words without some visual graphic description - especially when the primary focus of the novel is nuanced on physical love, in the setting of colonial oppression (France - Vietnam), social stratification (wealthy ethnic-Chinese enclave in Vietnam - poor French nationals living in colonial outposts), racial separation (native Asians - colonial Whites), then later, the realization of right-and-wrong (the mother apologizing to Tony Leung about her children's bad behaviour), and finally higher emotional love (Jane March's heart-broken scene on the ocean liner).

In addition, this movie was told from an impoverished, uneducated, inexperienced, naïve, but yet elitist colonial French girl's point-of-view, in the 1920's Vietnam. (Also remember that the younger Marguerite Duras was actually more Vietnamese than French.). So...to call this movie a kiddie-porn / soft-porn in disguise is unfair - it IS about sex between a fifteen-year-old girl and a thirty-two-year-old man, no pretense here. To criticize a certain scene as "disguised rape" is unfair - it WAS rape, a perfect cinematic description sexual aggression, control, and power. Things must be kept in context of the time and place. If one were to criticize every aspect of this film, then let's not make a film about colonialism, inequality of race or wealth, or any other wrong doing in the world.

And finally, how the French look at love and sex is different from many other cultures. This movie is based on a French novel (one of many versions on the same theme by Marguerite Duras), as such, there is an expectation that the audience should know the plot already, and the movie should be treated as a visual extension - or one could say, a "validation"- of their imagery when reading the novel (How would anyone know what Colonial Vietnam looked like without moving visual images on screen?).

I agree that the sex scenes border on soft-porn (one cannot make a successful intellectual movie nowadays without it being filmed in English, as well as some artful sex-scene thrown in); however, it was cleverly done. And it is true that if these scenes were to be deleted from the movie, the rest would not make sense - because the novel was based on those bedroom scenes that subsequently shaped and formed Marguerite Duras's life. I recommend, if you speak French, to watch the movie in the French soundtrack. It provides a more authentic feel to the period (of course, the actors' mouths would not match the sound...but for Europeans, it is not of great detriments, as they are used to multi-culture casting.)

---

Lush, Sensuous, and Intense
Beautifully filmed with attention to detail in order to capture 1920's Saigon, you'll find yourself watching this film over and over again. The Director's Cut contains some of the steamiest, most arousing scenes on film, yet they were still tastefully done and befitting of the story. One of the most erotically-charged scenes occurred when the young girl presses her lips against the window of the man's limo. She, of course, is kissing his reflection in the glass. That scene alone captures the extreme sexual yearning and desire between the two characters--in fact, you will feel what the characters feel when watching it. Only thin glass separates the two at that point. These lovers are doomed from the start, with their differences in age, in economic class, and in race. A poor, "white trash" French girl was still considered of a higher class than an extremely wealthy Asian man back in 1920s Saigon. The two lovers struggle with these differences within themselves and within their families. Sadly, the girl's mother sees a cash cow in her young daughter's lover and allows the illicit affair to continue. The story in poignant and touching at times, sensuous and erotic, but there's always underlying current of drug-induced violence, hatred, and tension which rears its ugly head, especially during the scenes where the young girl returns home during school breaks. A coming-of-age film that will leave an indelible impression.

---

The Lover - A Passionate Love Story
For those who think this movie is only carnal, I extend my deepest sympathies for your apparent ignorance. This is a romeo and juliet parallel not to be missed.

This is one of, if not the best, love story ever written. It tells of a young woman, barely 17, whose life is already a tragedy. Her family was thrown from wealth and good standing, to poverty and squalor, scraping by to make ends meet in French occupied Vietnam. She is all but shakespearean in her suffering, without the guidance of a father, and the love of a weak and unscrupulous mother and drug addicted brother. There is much tenderness in the cannonization of the youngest brother, as a living saint, the one pure thing in her life.

The lover, played by Tony Leung Kai Fai, is himself, a tragic hero. Educated in France, he longs to shirk the burden of his chinese culture, buck tradition and marry for love. He is consumed by the forced arranged marriage, and pursues the young Jane March with the guile of an experienced and wealthy man, but with the tenderness and respect of a true lover.

The two make an arrangement to meet in his bachelor pad, which according to chinese tradition, is a "practice area" for marriage. Jane March's young virgin surrenders to passion and experience, while remaining emotionally detatched from her chinese lover, for he tells her that they can "never be married" as it is "not allowed", and he would be disowned and poverty stricken if he went against the wishes of his family. Seemingly, Jane March's character cares little for the potential of this toxic relationship, revelling only in the sexual experience and conversation that they share in their secret room, away from the rest of the world. He is her escape, as surreal as the life she escapes from.

The scenes are intimate and touching, full of tenderness and imagery that conveys the worship like reverence with which they experience each other. He, worshiping her sexual innocence, while she worships his sexual experience. A powerful and erotic culmination.

Truly as story continues, you believe each of the characters less and less, as they joke about how they would not fit in to each others world. They do a wonderful job trying to convince each other that the affair means nothing. It becomes less believable, as you see them fall deeper and deeper into love, and examples of arguments where they truly hurt each other, in the way that only two people in love can wound.

A truly touching ending that had me in tears, as her ship pulls away from the harbour and he is there, in his car, watching her leave.

Highly recommend this movie as a measure to restore your faith in the very real power and strength of love, even when there is no "story book" ending.(...)