This was a recommendation from our cinephile friend but I had a hard time getting into it. Even with the help of Chinese subtitles I had difficulty following along as the characters switch between different Chinese languages and the cast of characters is huge with complicated relationships between them. The director Yang Ya-che must have realized this as well as there are captions when new characters are introduced as well as a pair of two mysterious elderly storytellers who provide exposition but that wasn’t quite enough for me.

Set in the 1980s, the film recounts a sordid tale of corruption and murder that has at its center Madame Tang. Though ostensibly a mere antique dealer who lives with her two daughters, she is in reality a fixer who moves in the highest circles of the wealthy and the politically powerful. Through her circle of wives of leaders in government she is involved in an expensive public construction project. Later one minor government official ends up dead, seemingly of suicide while a member of their circle is killed along his wife by home intruders, leaving their daughter severely injured. Inevitably, it is discovered that a large amount of money is missing from the project. Meanwhile Madame Tang’s elder daughter Tang Ning assists her mother with her schemes, seducing men for information and blackmail material despite being addicted to drugs and alcohol. The younger daughter Tang Zhen is seemingly dutiful and innocent but she has a dark side to her personality as well and the family hides a shameful secret.

Large parts of the plot elude my understanding and even my wife was mystified. For example I don’t understand the details of how the fraud they are involved in works, the full significance of the statue with the broken hand or who Madame Tang’s husband is. This both annoys me and render my opinions of the view rather suspect. I’m guessing that this might be a veiled allusion to a real case in Taiwan but I couldn’t find any references. All told it looks like a fairly standard tale of evil intrigue and is at least competently made. I suppose the viewer is meant to be shocked that the outwardly pious and cultured Madame Tang is secretly a criminal mastermind but it seemed obvious to me that she was behind everything the whole time. Frankly the film stretches believability somewhat as she is never portrayed as having underlings and she would need those in order to pull off the things that she does.

I believe that I do understand the emotional underpinnings of the relationships with the daughters well enough but that is also where the film makes the most impact to me. The toxic nature of their ties, poisoned by the secrets in their family and how the two daughters were raised is truly horrifying though I won’t spoil the secret here. The single best scene in the film may be the moment when the elder Tang Ning who is genuinely trying to save Tang Zhen from the plots of Madame Tang realizes that the younger girl, a mere child, has betrayed her. I don’t believe that there is a single good character in the film who is left untouched by the corruption which makes this film an impressively unadulterated testament to the dark side of human nature.

I still don’t like this that much, because there’s so much I don’t understand and because the film shows the results of Madame Tang’s plots but not how she accomplishes them. It’s effectively a Xanatos Gambit with all of the details hidden which is just cheaty. I do have to give it points for style and how it is unapologetically a celebration of Team Evil. That’s something you don’t see everyday.