It is a deep historical insight into a beautiful French teenager in colonial Indochina in the 1920s. One day, this girl enters into a frivolous and forbidden romantic friendship with a handsome Chinese playboy, as things turn out to be an abusive path. Now, they both realize that knowing their relationship will bring disastrous difficulties and paths for them.
The worst part of the dialog is given to the writer. She has to say one pedantic line after another, and overall, the narrator's part is just too wordy.
Too bad that the film is marred by the vices of international productions, as it deals with issues seldom shown in American movies, such as the power of sexuality.
Stylish if somewhat tedious study of a young Vietnamese woman who falls under the spell of an older dandy.
Chicago Sun-Times
January 01, 2000
Annaud and his collaborators have got all of the physical details just right, but there is a failure of the imagination here; we do not sense the presence of real people behind the attractive facades of the two main actors.
