Movie Reviews : ‘Dark Night’ Tends to Be a Sleepy One

According to its press notes, the Taiwan-made “Dark Night” (Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex and the downtown Grande), about the “awakening” of a young upper-middle-class Chinese wife following an affair with a heartless stud, caused a flurry of controversy both from government censors and conservative Taiwanese legislators. However, audiences on this side of the water are going to be hard-pressed to stay awake through the awakening.

The first feature of director-writer Fred Tan, a Taiwan-born, recent UCLA cinema school graduate, it was adapted from a novel by Sue Li-Eng serialized in Taiwan’s leading newspaper, China Times. If it looks clean and sleekly impersonal, it plays like pop sludge: the rich, handsome chauvinist of a husband, the shy, conventional Chinese wife (surrounded by luxury, could she dare want more!), the caddish lover.

There’s no denying Tan’s technical skill, but where pulp can be a jolt of gaudy fun, “Dark Night’s” melodramatic stateliness drains every bit of energy from this 1-hour, 55-minute wallow in predictability and florid symbolism.

Tan seems interested in the contrast of the high-rise, high-risk lives of these young stockbrokers and business wheeler-dealers and the tradition that still dictates their wives’ every move. (Well, every other.) They drive miles to consult village shamans about pregnancies and abortions--under the guise of asking for luck for their households. They have rounds of flower-arranging classes and long afternoons of gossip over the clatter of mah-jongg tiles.

Unfortunately, in Tan’s hands, it becomes decorous, Cosmo magazine adultery; relentlessly chic with never a whiff of honest lust or enough characterization to let us understand anyone’s motivations.

The film’s nude moments (it is Times-rated for nudity and sexual content) may have perturbed Taiwan censors, but this is light-years away from the pure erotic honesty of, say, “Realm of the Senses.” A woman’s life is supposed to undergo sexual upheaval in this film too. But it becomes difficult to stifle giggles as the flashy, experienced lover pushes himself off Ming-Ming’s body to reveal the fact that he’s managed the afternoon’s athleticisms while wearing bikini briefs.

Blaming the film’s clammy sensibility on cultural differences just won’t wash: A certain impassiveness is part of the Asian tradition, but there are contemporary Chinese films breaking through now that can break your heart as simply as any in the Japanese cinema. Unfortunately, “Dark Night” isn’t one of them.