Love Conquers All

It is very difficult to judge a culture that is so distant from ours, like China. Yet, even not minding its extremely slow pace, often made of moments that points towards nothing (quite differently from our beloved Bergman and Antonioni), this film does not convince me at all. More than a portrait of the difficulties of women in front of romance, as most of the summaries and reviews say, it is a supposedly moral fable with an absurd thesis: as for romance, the two choices of a woman are either getting into the arms of the villain, whose callous harassment ends up being charming anyway, or refrain totally from giving vent to their impulses (which can happen only in childhood). True: in real life women do not like decent men (let alone fall in love with them) as much as they do in sappy TV fictions and in guest columns. Yet, if this film portrays reality as it is, as other reviewers have said, it is really enough ground for depression.