THE film-noir of the century.

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 1999)

Although I do not appreciate Polanski's movies that much ("Macbeth" for example which is the worse movie I've ever seen), I must say that I loved this one. Sure, it's a little gory, which is what I usually do not like about Polanski's movies, but in "Chinatown", I thought the gory scenes were OK for two reasons:
-There is not too much gore.
-The gore scenes are pretty subtle.
In fact, I can only recall one gory scene, the ending. I say it is subtle because I hadn't noticed that Faye Dunaway had been shot through the eye at first.
This movie shows you what you can do with just a few elements. A woman who believes her husband is cheating on her whereas she isn't really his wife, a water dam, and the man who controls the projects for the dam. These three simple elements lead to a complex story of murder and incest. Plus, Polanski got the best actors for the movie and created a masterpiece. It's great.