I went to that much hyped movie next morning after its premiere night, mostly because it had been an award-winning picture raved about by many critics, and partly because it was directed by one of the so-called “ Light of Taiwan”, Lee Ang.

You may be aware of the storyline of the picture, a film version of Chang Ai-ling’s fiction, allegedly originated from an authentic heroism: A beautiful female secret agent attempted to seduce and assassinate a traitor through a badger game during Sino-Japanese war. Unfortuately she shook her faith at the very critical momnet and then left herself and her comrades to the mercy of that ruthless traitor.

Lee’s flair, dramatics and skill in making pictures are beyond any doubt. All I am trying to differ with him is: just as you don’t have to describe a heroism or patriotism in a didactic way, you don’t have to illustrate the process of a badger game with explicitness either. I am not that sanctimonious, but I think the blatant eroticism has made the film a porn-like movie, which are unnecessay and can be removed. Eventually, true arts are of highly symbolic nature; Lee could have equally conveyed his idea, probably an apocalyptic kind of hankering for lust of a man and a woman under stress, with less overt expression, unless he deliberately made his work curry favor to commercialism, or even vulgarity.

Besides, a good movie, like a good fiction, is a slice of life. A well-trained secret agent should be totally hardened, devoted to nothing but his or her ultimate goal. How come she forgot her sacred task and fell in love with the sworn emeny she vowed to kill, simply for a six-karat diamond ring which representing his false love to her? (Or just like the author Chang said that the best way for a man to conquer a woman is through her vagina?) It’s kind of insult to the real heroine, and worse still, to the history, a history of modern China’s tribulation from which its sequel is still playing between Taiwan Strait.

p.s. Chang Ai-Ling’s husband, Hu Lan-Chen, a reputed traitor, was
teaching Chinese Literature at College of Chinese Cuture in 60′s when his treason was debunked by a scholar and legislater Hu Chiu-Yuan. At last the college, among inexorable opprobrium from everywhere, was forced to dismiss him of the tenure.