Whatever went wrong with this stage to film transfer of the hit Broadway and London West End play about a Sixties French diplomat who falls for a Chinese opera singer without realising his lover is a female impersonator? Anthony Hopkins was brilliant on the London stage, but Jeremy Irons never engages the emotions, no matter how suitably haunted and tortured he looks. David Cronenberg seems an ideal choice as director, but his decision to film the bizarre material naturalistically scuppers the project. The story as presented here is just plain unbelievable, and the drama is always in neutral when there should be a swirling vortex of emotions. On the plus side, it looks handsome in a stylish production, and it's technically first rate. Based, amazingly, on a true story.


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