Chinese Box

This is the last time I go see a movie that I think is about a composer's life without the ads saying explicitly that it is, in fact, about a composer's life. First there was "CopLAND" last summer, which was not in fact a biography of America's most popular non-popular composer, and now this movie, which is not in fact about Shu-Jung Bach and Ming-Li Bach, two of Bach's sons who traveled a little further afield than the others. (Because Karl "Carl" Philip Emanuel Bach was the "English Bach," and Wilhelm Friederich was the "German Bach"...about two of you are laughing. O well.)

Once my expectations were shattered, I recomposed myself and ended up sort of enjoying the movie. Its point and problem is that its characters are ciphers; you keep expecting Jeremy Irons to wear a sign around his neck that says "I am England, able to posess briefly but not to understand Hong Kong," and so forth. This sort of thing can be annoying, but the actors are all very good, particular Gong Li, who helps make Irons' motivation more plausible by being so fiiiine that most men would have no real potential responses beyond the puppylike devotion Irons exhibits through most of the movie. Beyond that, it's heartfelt, which is something you would expect from any movie but which movie fail to deliver most of the time nowadays, and it does deal with a momentous time in history, i.e. Hong Kong during the changeover. Your call.

Attractive Man Count: 1 for Irons.

Attractive Woman Count: 2 (the other one is Maggie Cheung).

Overall Grade: B.

Foreign Films Home

Spam-O-Matic Home