Some may view this startling film, shot months after the Tiananmen Square uprising and massacre, as a retreat, for what Western critics have dubbed its Postman Always Rings Twice-like "erotic tale of forbidden passion." But Ju Dou's daring lies in a filmic sensuality, through which it seizes and reveals the myths and reality of Chinese "inscrutability" and "self-enclosure" for the hidden millions inside China. Ju Dou can be seen as a real leap forward, subversive in its relentless exposures. At first glance the picture unfolds like a sumptuous scroll, but it is filmed like a Li Po poem with lightning-quick flashes of brilliance and evocative colors "voyeuring" through another dimension. The telescopically shot interior landscapes show bodies and souls battling to burst through the silk canvas-which is all the while unraveling like the billowing bolts of natural cloth in the dye factory where the film takes place, circa 1920. What's natural isn't natural. Adultery isn't the crime, love is. Ju Dou's final liberating act of rebellion is to face reality and destroy it.-Vicci Wong