Jin shi pei yu 3: Xiang Gang qing ye

Of course the whole premise is dubious, kidnap, rape and happy ever after, and yet… This movie is beautifully lit and astonishingly beautiful to look at. Almost every frame is a ravishing treat and yet we are dealing with contentious issues here. This movie goes further into the blurring of love and need and the joys and horrors of freedom and captivity than we really want to go. If you have seen others in this controversial series you will have no doubt but that we are on a journey from kidnap and humiliation to a desperate and mutual love that nothing can prevent but still we have to question whether this is the true wisdom. Should, could, would the raped, the kidnapped become desirous, indeed of need of their captor? Maybe this is a very pretty, very affecting illustration of the cave-man ethic but however seriously one takes it philosophically it is irresistible in itself.

I saw the first film in this series a long time back and was pleasantly surprised by it. Though I purchased the dvd for this third one in the series over 10 years ago, I put off watching it thinking I would be disappointed. Follow ups in a series tend to be inferior to the first one. So I saw it just now with low expectations. It turned out that I was even more surprised this time. Then I read the review that someone wrote over 10 years ago. An excellent review which I can hardly improve on. So read it. This is a psychological film I think too slow for many people, but I found it astonishing beautiful. Acting, music, editing - all superb. A seemingly improbable story, but I wish life to be like this (it isn't of course).