It was bad to the point that you'll be paying attention to the next line of subtitle to spot yet another typo, which is distracting to say the least, taking attention away from what is happening on screen. For its rich production values in recreating costumes and sets for 30s Shanghai, obviously the filmmakers decided not to pay attention to other details, such as the accuracy of the English subtitles, which is horrible for a production of this scale and magnitude, with ambition to appeal to the Western world.
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At one point he admits that he never would dare cross Miss Mo, and given the knowledge of Beibei's mother badmouthing him to Fenyu, he accepts Miss Mo's challenge and bet, and the manipulative games are all set to begin, for unexpected consequences to all parties who allow true emotions be involved, and putting everyone in a fix whether to trust their hearts, or heads and the respective reputations that precede them.
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For all his wit, charm and style that made countless of women fall under his spell, he cannot seem to get through to Fenyu who has been resisting all his advances, and I suppose nothing appeals more to Yifan than a real challenge. But for Yifan, Beibei is not a challenge, because his sights is firmly set on the recently widowed Du Fenyu (Zhang Ziyi), his second cousin who is now staying in his mansion. And her objective here is simple, to get the playboy Xie Yifan (Jang Dong Gun) bed the virginal Beibei (Candy Wang), in order to slap the face of a rich rival who is determined to marry a virgin. A trophy wife who had made it good when her husband passed on, she's what would be top of the list if Forbes was doing the richest, most powerful and influential list of women in Shanghai, to whom everyone kowtows to. The primary villain in the film, the character is the classic smiling assassin, who seem to befriend you with honesty and sincerity, only to be wielding a butcher's knife behind your back, ready to strike. I mean, who puts mirrors on ceilings, if not to reflect on one's narcissism? Which is just about what Cecilia Cheung's character of Miss Mo, central to the plot and chief manipulator, does for her mansion of opulence. And relationships built are nothing but temporal and fleeting, for the purpose of advancement, with self interests put above anything else.
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To the uninitiated, it deals with the games the rich engage in play in, using each other's resources to tangle and play with the feelings and emotions of others, just because they can, or in essence, to hit below the belt of one's enemies, striking straight into the ego and pride. While the original tale is set in France before the French Revolution, this Chinese version sets it in the tumultuous period in 1930s Shanghai, retaining key plot developments and characters from the novel Screened at the Cannes Film Festival Director's Fortnight sidebar, this Chinese production, directed by Korean Hur Jin Ho, who did April Snow, doesn't offer anything new to those who are familiar with the original tale, or various adaptations already done for the screen and stage.
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Based on the 18th century French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Perre Choderlos de Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons got a memorable screen adaptation through Stephen Frear's film with the likes of Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman playing pivotal roles in a tale of power, corruption and the use of sex as a manipulative weapon amongst the rich and idle.