The Lover

1992 • 1h 55m •

Drama Romance

MOVIEVIBE Rating

★ 7.0/10

781 reviews

Your Rating

A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.

"She gave her innocence, her passion, her body. The one thing she couldn't give was her love."

Top Billed Cast

Jane March

The Young Girl

Tony Leung Ka-fai

The Chinaman

Frédérique Meininger

The Mother

Arnaud Giovaninetti

The Elder Brother

Melvil Poupaud

The Younger Brother

Lisa Faulkner

Helene Lagonelle

Jeanne Moreau

Narrator (voice)

Xiem Mang

The Chinaman's Father

Detailed Critic & Audience Reviews

C CinemaSerf Verified TMDB Critic

2024-01-05

A wealthy man (Tony Leung) is travelling on a ferry when he encounters a pretty young woman (Jane March). It doesn't take long before they are having a fairly torrid affair, but things are difficult. He is older and a Chinese citizen, she a French girl in what was then French Indo-China. She is also a bit of a gold-digger and quite aware that if she plays her cards right, he can offer her a new, more prosperous, life than that she shares with her mother (Fréderique Meininger) and two brothers. The older brother (Arnaud Giovaninetti) is a bit puritanical when it comes to his sister, her younge...