Wow! Such a good movie.

Wonderful character development!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The Lover is a beautiful Art-house piece of film making, it's sex scenes, boldly frank and indeed sexy, where on top of that, are two captivating performances. It's hard to understand why people takes jabs at March's acting. Here, she so convincingly plays a French teenage girl, who, while traveling to boarding school in Saigon, meets an older wealthy Asian man, Leung, while boating down The Mekong River. She falls in love with him, and a passionate and forbidden affair in many ways, begins. Her character is not a happy person, neither is mother Mother or younger brother, due to the violent abuse they take from older brother. Things become worse when this relationship intensifies, fueling a much vented jealousy from older brother, a nasty piece of work. The photography and use of locations, is beautiful, which wonderfully sells it cinematically. The Lover was certainly something different for me back in 94, where sadly after Color Of Night, the underrated March disappeared off the radar, before making a slight return in that atrocious and little known Tarzan film with Casper Van Dien. The old women narration of March's character, by Jeanne Moreau, as reflecting back on this time, is perfectly cast. On the whole, The Lover is a movie experience to be experienced, which will have you pondering if love really exists, between these two or about what real love is, in general. Leung is the greatest Asian actor I've seen.

Went to see this in the cinema, at the time all the press was raving about it and "the sinner from Pinner".I sat through the whole film waiting for something interesting to happen, NOTHING happened.10 minutes in people were walking out of the theatre, 20 minutes in and my girlfriend and at least half of the rest of the audience were snoring.Having seen the original Emmanuelle (1974) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071464/ in the cinema (at a much younger age) and all the comparisons to it I thought this would at least be mildly entertaining but this is one of those films that has you thinking to yourself "I want the time I wasted watching that crap back!" If you are considering watching this then also consider watching some paint dry or contemplating ditch water as you will find it more soothing and satisfying than this pap.

In Jean-Jacques Annaud's flaccid soft-porn melodrama a young French girl is sexually awakened by a polite but torrid affair with a Chinese gentleman in colonial Southeast Asia. The film was adapted from the autobiographical novel by Marguerite Duras, but is actually a dimwitted cousin to 'Last Tango In Paris', with all the pretensions but none of the power of Bertolucci's film (the anonymous characters are identified only as 'the girl', 'the Chinese man', and so forth). The eroticism so vital to the story is further undermined by a script that might have been improved by subtitles (but not by much), and fatally crippled by two leads with little chemistry and even less depth. There's nothing about the vague, passive schoolgirl played by Jean March to suggest she could ever write like Duras, so it's hard to connect the often exquisite voice-over narration (read by Jeanne Moreau) with the empty sentiments coming out her mouth. Desperate publicists tried to drum up prurient interest by circulating rumors that the sex was genuine, but it's a moot point: the love scenes are no more provocative than a gymnastics exhibition, minus the dexterity and grace.

The first time I heard about The Lover I was in high school and it was one of those films that a few classmates of mine would always bring up as the "dirtiest" movie they had ever seen. When I caught the unrated version of the film when it premiered back on Cinemax in 1993. I had no idea what I was in store for. I had already seen films that intensely explored sexual relationships in graphic detail, but most relegated the central issue, sex, to the background. They were more concerned with showing the emotional consequences of unrestrained passion, and not showing the obsession as it's played out in the bedroom. What makes The Lover so unique is that it's a movie which is not afraid to show us exactly what its lovers do when they're together. It shows us in explicit detail, repeatedly. The movie has incredible acting, direction, production design, which I will get to in a second. But the main reason to see this film is Jane March. Throughout this movie Jane is showing us her beautiful figure and openly sharing with us her sexual uninhibitedness. Her scenes with Tony absolutely melt the screen with eroticism. She was 17 years old during film, and you can see that her tremendous teenager body was still in course of formation. Jane is almost constantly naked throughout the middle of this film, and see her young body from practically every angle there is. We get great looks at her body during sex, when she's being washed, when she's walking around, and even when she's just lying there. But even when she is not seen disrobing, March is unbelievably sexy. The scene in which she puts her lips on the window of a man who is visiting her at school are some of the most erotically charged scenes in cinema history.The story focuses on "the young girl", whose life is already a tragedy at only the age of 15. Her family was once wealthy and respected, but they lost it all. They find themselves living in French occupied Vietnam. There is no love loss between the young girl and her mother--a truly cold woman with no sense of right or wrong. One of her brothers is addicted to drugs, and treats her with nothing but contempt. Her only shining light of hope is her younger brother. The lover is himself a tragic figure. Educated in France, he despises much of traditional Chinese culture, and is desperate to leave tradition behind and marry for love. He is severely depressed, and becomes infatuated by the sight of a young European girl he spots on a ferry. He decides right then to pursue the young girl as a way to escape his increasingly sad state of mind. After accepting a ride in his car, the two find themselves tightly holding hands. After dropping her off at the boarding school she attends, he becomes obsessed with seeing her again. The two eventually make an arrangement to meet in his bachelor pad, which according to Chinese tradition, is a "practice area" for marriage. The very intense relationship progresses as each plays with each other's bodies, lives and feelings. He says that he is in a prearranged marriage and cannot marry her, but he seems totally taken with her. She says that sex is totally fine with her, but could she be denying that it is love that she feels? With both families aware and opposed to their meeting, the young girl and the lover continue on exploring each other. It is only at the end that the true feelings are revealed.What director Annaud does brilliantly is to portray the lovers' yearning without giving voice to it overtly. He depicts it through a series of disavowals, through the wounds they inflict on each other, and allows the viewer to fill in that which cannot be uttered. Annaud spent over a year in Vietnam scouting for the most beautiful locations and remain of French colonial empire. The music is rich, the costumes are beautiful, and photography captures the sultry atmosphere of Indochina. The director took a long time finding a young actress who could easily pass for a girl in her mid teens. He finally the incredibly youthful looking Jane March. Although she plays a 15 year old here, the makeup and lighting make her appear even younger.No review of The Lover is complete without mentioning its pervasive sexuality. There is a bit of a controversy over the possibility of Jane March losing her virginity during her scenes with Tony Leung. There seems to be so much speculation - and different accounts, so its hard to know the truth I guess. You'll notice her facial expressions in the "deflowering" scene seem to be authentic, as they show her grimacing one second and smiling the next. Did they have actual sex? Opinions vary. I believe they did, and the actors just lied about it after wards. Take the third love scene as an example. The fact that Leung and March scoot across the floor like that while in the throes of passion makes it seem very likely that they were actually having sex. The fourth love scene, which has March sitting on top of Leung clearly shows a penetration shot. One cannot fake that.In the end, The Lover is a compelling story of how people fulfill the need for emotional survival. It is a testament to how blind we are to our own deficiencies. The ending is one of the most haunting scenes in film history. It's impossible not to feel for the young girl as she thinks about what her relationship with her lover could have been. Check this one out.