Hur’s angle, by contrast, is to observe the raunchy proceedings from a slightly amused distance, soaking in the melodrama and the ravishing environs that surround it. ![]() Not that valiant attempts haven’t been made over the years to contemporize or otherwise reorient the particulars to more radical effect: Roger Kumble’s mildly iconic ’90s romp Cruel Intentions transformed the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont into attractive step-siblings conspiring to dominate the innocents of their high school, which though silly was nevertheless decidedly fun. ![]() We all remember that Stephen Frears, a reliable workman rather than any kind of visionary, unimaginatively replicated the milieu of his source text in order to lend his film an atmosphere of period prestige, which may account for why it remains to this day Hollywood’s definitive iteration of a story retold ad infinitum. ![]() One of the most striking features of Dangerous Liaisons, director Hur Jin-ho’s Chinese remake of the much-adapted French novel, is that the gilded chambers and opulent opera houses of 1930s Shanghai seem like immensely satisfying substitutions for the stuffy manor homes and countrysides of the original’s 18th-century France.
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