A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
Cinematography
Saigon's golden decay, bodies as landscape
Acting
Jane March's devastating stillness, Tony Leung's trembling restraint
Production
That room—that bed— Characters in itself
Director
Jean-Jacques Annaud
Jane March
The Young Girl
Tony Leung Ka-fai
The Chinaman
Frédérique Meininger
The Mother
Arnaud Giovaninetti
The Elder Brother
Melvil Poupaud
The Younger Brother
Lisa Faulkner
Helene Lagonelle
Jeanne Moreau
Narrator (voice)
Philippe Le Dem
The French Teacher
Tania Torrens
The Principal
Espérance Pham Thai Lan
Femme
Hélène Patarot
The Assistant Mistress
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Marguerite Duras denied this was autobiography until 1984, when she finally admitted the Chinese lover was real—and that she'd invented her indifference.
Annaud shot the explicit scenes twice: once with body doubles, once with the actors. March and Leung only learned which footage made the final cut at Cannes.
FR
