CHINA MOON is a rather unimpressive addition to the wave of 'erotic thrillers' that were doing the rounds in the early 1990s. This one has a decent cast but a disappointing plot which feels lightweight and padded out. Madeleine Stowe stars as a bored and frustrated housewife, at the mercy of her cruel husband (a delightfully nasty Charles Dance, struggling a bit with the American accent), who meets and falls for Ed Harris, the rugged cop who comes into her life. A murderous plot development ensues, and the film becomes a police procedural thriller from that point on. The cast members work hard to add some credibility to this story, but I didn't really buy it, and that last twist is frankly unbelievable. Still, it's worth a look to see Harris on strong form, and a youthful Benicio del Toro makes an impression too.

By no means something we haven't seen before, in olden Hollywood times this would have been the kind of studio quickie that fills a double program and starring a Victor Mature or Richard Widmark, here Ed Harris and a young Del Toro.It's film noir, the most standard story in the repertoire; well meaning joe smitten by beautiful woman he chances to meet in a bar, someone's unhappy wife and pleads to him. We move through the customary points fairly quickly, we quickly establish them as in love, the husband as abusive cheat, and you don't even need me to tell you there's going to be a plot that backfires the day after. Ideally I would rather have this in a more spacious way, it's a bit constricted by the need to go through set motions. Interesting is that we're not meant to know if she manipulated him that night or if there's another author in control of the narrative. We have only the enigmatic shot of her leaving the hotel and another woman going up to her room (to assume her place in the narrative).The question is not just who done it here or will he get the rap. It's a question of if love that seemed so eager in her eyes was feigned after all. It's all the more devastating as we switch to his pov, that he wasn't just a dope tricked by sex, he was holding out for someone who was the promise of a life together.It makes a real difference for me that we have these two people. In stuff like Romeo is Bleeding or Last Seduction, noir is turned into garish occasion, and I believe noir is enhanced all the more when we're able to see people who aren't cutouts truly struggle with how the world presents itself to them.Harris is great in anchoring a fundamentally alert person who allows himself to stray for love. But it's the lovely Madeleine Stow who makes it, that we have at the center someone with a face as open as hers clouded by all these momentary flickers. She manages to anchor angst about her marriage, truthfulness in the love, from a soft distance that belies the inclination to reduce her to what we expect from familiarity with this type of story. It simply wouldn't be the same without her.Look for example for the airport scene where she goes to pick up her husband, her steely-eyed look as she realizes the betrayal in plain sight might be a femme fatale's scheming of what we assume she is, or simply a woman's determination to end the charade. It's a more elusive view of noir machinations.So I like that we have these two characters as we do, the wraparound into plot and eventual unmaskings less so. Noir Meter: 3/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo

This is worth a watch just for the 3 main leads. Ed Harris when he had some hair, Benicio before his eyebags got too dark and Madeleine Stowe at her most beautiful. The camera spends a lot of screen time focussing on moonlight shots of her lovely face.The story itself is predictable and familiar but that's okay. Beautiful woman married to brutish wealthy man who cheats on her (why would someone cheat on such a beautiful wife?). A cop falls in love with her and guess what bang bang the husband is dead. The conclusion feels a bit cheap and weak and that is disappointing.Despite its flaws I think it's worth a watch for the actors just don't expect a great story.

Talk about plot twists! Just when you think you've got this movie figured out, it yanks the rug out from under you and it's a whole new storyline.This is an outrageously unlikely but entertaining thriller that pays homage to "Body Heat" in ways that kept me consistently suspicious of the Madeleine Stowe character. How wrong I turned out to be. And she keeps on surprising up to the film's final frame. Ed Harris does a great job of playing the fall guy; a kind of double agent -- criminally tampering police detective probing the murder to which he is an accomplice. Bravo, Ed, and I loved the red hair.Plaudits, too, to Benecio del Toro as a schemer of almost Shakespearean proportions. He's excellent as a Jekyll-Hyde-like wet-behind-the-ears rookie and criminal mastermind.If you like movies that keep you guessing, take a look this one at the next full moon...