A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
Nominated for 1 Oscar. 3 wins & 7 nominations total
Top Critics Reviews
rotten:
Never mind that in portraying passion, the two seem to be demonstrating the proper use of the Salad Shooter.
– Rita Kempley,
Washington Post,
1 Jan 2000
rotten:
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.
– Roger Ebert,
Chicago Sun-Times,
1 Jan 2000
rotten:
Scratch away the steamy, evocative surface, remove Jeanne Moreau's veteran-voiced narration, and you have only art-film banalities.