Red Dust

China under Japanese occupation in the thirties. A gifted woman novelist and a man who works with the Japanese, counted a traitor in his own country, fall for each other. Their relationship is impossible from the start; the war, the end of the occupation and the great political change that follows carry both of them along. The real distance between them is not feeling but political choice. Yim Ho's film sets a love story into the middle of twentieth century Chinese history. The scenes Brigitte Lin and Maggie Cheung play together are its strongest part. Yim Ho also takes a small role in the film. The telling stands close to melodrama, yet it does not reduce the question of collaboration to a simple accusation; it leaves to the viewer who chose what and why.