Dangerous Liaisons

Set in 1930s Shanghai, Dangerous Liaisons follows Mo Jieyu, a wealthy society woman, who encounters her former lover Xie Yifan, a notorious womanizer who has never stopped loving her. She draws him into a cruel wager: he is to seduce Du Fenyu, a young and innocent woman, and then abandon her. What begins as a game of manipulation grows increasingly hazardous as genuine feelings develop between the would-be seducer and his target. The film is an adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's French novel of the same name, transposed from pre-revolutionary France to a glamorous, turbulent Shanghai on the brink of war.

The Chinese-South Korean-Singaporean production was directed by Hur Jin-ho, marking his fifth feature and his first departure from the contemporary Korean melodramas of his earlier career, following One Fine Spring Day and April Snow. The screenplay was written by Yan Geling and Lee Han-eol, and the cast is led by Jang Dong-gun as Xie Yifan, Zhang Ziyi as Du Fenyu, Cecilia Cheung as Mo Jieyu, Shawn Dou, Candy Wang and Lisa Lu. Made on a budget of roughly 31 million US dollars, it drew modest audience scores: on IMDb it holds 6 out of 10 from about 2,100 votes, and on TMDB 6 out of 10 from 44 votes.