It was a shock to see Brigitte Lin in a film and not see her in drag once throughout the entire film. After watching Red Dust,
I wished that she had appeared this way more often. While I love watching her in her numerous
cross-dressing/kung-fu/badass roles, it's apparent from this film that there is much more to her acting talents than just
that. After seeing this, I sincerely wish that she had done fewer campy kungfu films. Not that I dislike campy kungfu films,
mind you, but it would have freed her to do more serious work like Red Dust.

Red Dust follows the life of a fiction writer played by Brigitte Lin, starting in 1935 during the Japanese occupation and
continuing through to 1949 during the civil war in China. The basic story is a love story, though, and these events are a
backdrop. They are also used to provide dramatic tension. This was a difficult time for China and its citizens, and the main
characters are no exception.

The love interest is played by Chin Han, who provides occasional narration throughout the film. He is a Chinese aide of
some sort to the Japanese (a collaborator). This creates some very obvious problems, particularly with Briggite Lin's more
politcally-minded friend, played by Maggie Cheung.

The best moments of the film come when Maggie and Brigitte are on screen together. They are both wonderful actresses and
it was great to see them working together, especially in a dramatic film (as opposed to the fairly poor Boys are Easy or the
great, but light, Dragon Inn). There is not enough screen time for Maggie, but in my opinion there is no possible way she
could ever have enough screen time so I'll just have to be satisfied.

Chin Han is also good as Brigitte's lover, though maybe not quite as good as the female leads (I'm biased, of course). The
actors in the supporting roles were good, but had relatively little screen time.

The story was very well-written, drawing you in and really making you care about the main characters. One interesting
touch is that occasionally there are scenes in the movie drawn from a novel that Brigitte is writing. This novel parallels
events in her real life. These scenes are just inserted into the movie and work rather well, especially when the lines between
the two are blurred. Unfortunately, these scenes are clustered at the beginning and end of the film, making them feel
unbalanced. Just one more somewhere in the middle would have rounded them out and made them work even better.
Nonetheless, it worked well when it was used.

Inevitably, a film like this will contain some melodrama. I'd prefer that there be as little as possible and I wasn't too put off
by it in Red Dust. It was more than made up for by great acting and an involving story. The music was very noticeable, which
was good when the music was good and frustrating when it was bad. I generally think that the music in the film should be
more subtle, and I'm not quite sure why the music was so in-your-face in Red Dust. This seems to be a fairly common
problem with Hong Kong films (one thing that Hollywood seems to have mastered is the art of the soundtrack. Rarely do I
hear a blatantly bad soundtrack in a Hollywood film anymore).

Visually, the film was well done, though without much fanfare. There were a few exceptions to this, especially a scene where
a mob attempts to board the last ship out of China. I loved the way the camera work showed the chaos of the mob,
heightening the tension. I also enjoyed the film's starkly beautiful ending shot.

See this film to see a different side of Brigitte Lin than we've come to expect. There is no cross-dressing and no icy stare of
death. There is just fine acting.