Choderlos de Laclos’ scandalous epistolary novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses has been a goose sliced every which way by the movies: as a Roger Vadim tease featuring a ripe young Jeanne Moreau (1959’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses); as a more traditional but lacerating period piece with John Malkovich, Glenn Close, and Michelle Pfeiffer (1988’s Dangerous Liaisons); and as a prep-school modernization for the younger set (1999’s Cruel Intentions). Its durability implies that the basics of de Laclos’ story—a deliciously seductive piece of sexual gamesmanship gone amiss—can be ported to any time and place without the dynamics being altered a bit; the only thing that changes is context. Set in 1930s Shanghai, Hur Jin-ho’s decorous adaptation cleverly swaps the insular, decadent world of de Laclos’ book, which takes place pre-French Revolution, with the similarly gilded cage of aristocrats just prior to the Japanese invasion. But it’s all just window-dressing: pretty, but substance-free.
