Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Lust, Caution (mild spoilers)

Saw Lust, Caution yesterday. It was very good if one likes the kind of high-quality melodrama that Ang Lee is good at - and I do.

It starts out almost comically, then gradually moves through darker to very dark.

The translation was not very good (no, I don't understand enough Chinese to know, but I've seen a more detailed translation of this movie). First of all, they omitted all reference to Chunking, where some characters were getting their orders from, making the viewer guess whether our young patriotic heroes were Communist or Kuomintang (not that it has any bearing on the plot, but in spite of sounding like young Communist heroes in the Russian movies they are most likely Kuomintang).

Also: what is it with using the title Tai-Tai in the Finnish texts? I understand using well-known foreign titles like Mr or Mrs or Madame or Frau, but since I really don't think that Tai-Tai is a common knowledge here, why is it not rouva?

The moral of the movie, if any: being a spy is bad for your sex life, and the other way around, too.

No comments: