The beautiful but mostly in this film unglamorous Gong Li plays the title character, a young woman forced into marriage with a much older silk dyer. She cannot conceive and gets abused for it. Her husband's nephew Tianqing admires her and, inevitably, they carry on an affair. She does conceive and gives birth to a son, her husband thinking its his. The old man ends up getting crippled in an accident, and Ju-Dou and Tianqing carry on their affair, almost gleefully under the husband's nose. All of this happens before the film is half finished. There are no heroes in this film, which is set in China in the 1920's. Its actually a tough film to watch because of it, since no one here is very likable. The theme that revenge is not all its cracked up to be really manifests itself as you go along, so the film is even a bit frustrating. The film was nominated for Best Foreign Film, but I didn't love it enough to applaud that nomination. Its good, and the acting is fine, but its a brutal film. Know that going in and its definitely watchable.
Review of Ju Dou
