Visually stunning, this is a dark and sleepy romance of a movie. Beautifully presented,with a wonderful music score to match. Set in another century,the film relates the tale of a man who on his business trips trekking the world from Europe to the Far East,Japan, ultimately and retrospectively discovers what is love. This is a quiet and intense emotional picture.It falls short of being a classic in my view only because of the miscasting of the lead male and female who are not sufficiently charismatic or convincing in their roles. But everything else is near perfect.And I still rate this film highly:7/10

Good: Scenes with scenery of Japan were breathtaking, very well shot. Lighting was good throughout the movie. Dark scenes were perfect, details were still viewable. Bad: Keira Knightley needs to eat something. Story was quite slow and left a lot out. Why was the man interested in the Japanese girl (other than the fact she was hot.) Why would the girl be interested in the man? They don't even speak the same language and they almost never even made eye contact. At least hint at something rather than giving us a complete void.Ugly: Michael Pitt was bland, lifeless. the guy who played Annakin Skywalker was horrible but at least he had a pulse. Pitt played his character like a zombie. Why? Is a man desperately in lust with an apparition from a foreign country going to walk around like a man in a coma? Ridiculous.Score: 5/10. (4 points for the scenery. Half a point to Keira for trying. Half a point for the twist at the end.)

I was getting really irritated with this film about 3/4 of the way through because it seemed to be heading in a very stereotypical and predictable direction, but then it shifted and ended in a way that I found surprising in the best sense of that word - I was glad that it was not what I expected and I was glad that it surprised me. It IS slow, but not in a bad way - it's very beautiful and contemplative and some movies deserve a slower pace. I don't think that Michael Pitt was perfectly cast, and although I think he's quite talented, I think another actor might have given the character more gravitas and substance. But he doesn't ruin the film. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you don't mind a slower paced film and you like historical movies, it's very much worth seeing.

What a sad flop, with the best of intentions. The message to the viewer is overly clear, it shouts: this is an artistic, slow and sensuous movie, contrasting Oriental philosophy with Western greed for speed and immediate effects. Well, yes, we get this rather soon, and then we suffer through the rest… Perhaps slow movies are not exact equivalents of slow food, after all. There are some redemptive traits, though. The film could be see as an illustration of Joyce Carol Oates's observation that "prolonged happiness is a prison from which the self yearns to escape at any cost". People cannot stand a prolonged happiness, and the protagonist says so much himself. Another (attempt at) redemption: perhaps the movie is about the temptations of Orientalism typical for the era portrayed: the Western men, bored to tears, looking for any kind of adventure that the exotic Orient could offer them. Because if it is a love story, it is Hélène's love story, but if so, it is underdeveloped. The other "love story" is too ridiculous even to consider.Finally: it is true that seeing it in with a full screen can help; I have watched it as DVD, and although it was a very good screen, it could not reproduce the immersion effect possible on a large screen only.