The Painted Veil - 2006

What a great movie. The cast members Naomi Watts, Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber are amazing here. You can understand how/why Naomi and Liev ended up marrying in real-life after seeing this film (steamy love scene).

The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel by British author W. Somerset Maugham that has much more detail than the film.

The Painted Veil is a 2006 Chinese-American drama film directed by John Curran. The screenplay by Ron Nyswaner is based on the 1925 novel of the same title by W. Somerset Maugham. Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Toby Jones, Anthony Wong Chau Sang and Liev Schreiber appear in the leading roles.

This is the third screen adaptation of the Maugham book, following a 1934 film starring Herbert Marshall and Greta Garbo and a 1957 version called The Seventh Sin with Bill Travers and Eleanor Parker.  On a brief trip back to London, earnest, bookish bacteriologist Walter Fane (Edward Norton) is dazzled by Kitty Garstin (Naomi Watts), a vivacious, vain, and vacuous London socialite. He proposes; she accepts (mostly to upset her mother), and the ill-suited couple embark on a tense relationship in China. Following a honeymoon in Venice, the couple go to Shanghai, where the doctor is stationed in a government lab studying infectious diseases.  Kitty meets Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber), a married British vice consul, and the two engage in a clandestine affair.

Filming took place on location in China. The director did not want to build a set for the cholera-stricken village, instead seeking out an untouched parcel of land in China. He found Huang Yao, which served as the location for the village. The director described the location, "Even the Chinese crew members were amazed at the place we found... It was like going back in time." According to Nyswaner, a large amount of time of the film production was spent negotiating with the Chinese government for the completion of the film, as there were disagreements over issues in the script. Most of the film was shot in Guilin, Guangxi. Director John Curran commented, "We wanted this movie to be distinctly Chinese. We didn’t want it to look like a film that you could shoot in Canada or Mexico or Italy." After a search of location in Hunan province, the scouts chose the location in Guilin, Guangxi for the film. Line producer Antonia Barnard states that initially the film, like the novel, was going to be set in Hong Kong, however the crew realized Hong Kong of the time period would be difficult to replicate, thus the story was altered so it would take place in Shanghai; the crew shot "Shanghai for Shanghai in the period, and shot London scenes in Shanghai as well." It's true--this film takes you back in time.