did he love her?

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[deleted]

No, He did not love her.

She however was young, romantic, frightened and confused. She had no basis for comparison with this "affair". And she wanted to believe it was more. Maybe she didn't want to be the cause of his death or anyone's for that matter. Even though she paid with her own life.

He however got off on the fact that he made a beautiful young woman obsessed with him. And he liked it even more that she died for him. In the book, he gloats over the fact that this young woman's ghost will be following him and protecting him in the afterlife.

So I took it as an ego trip for him and an infatuation for her.

I feel he did love her MAYBE not as much as she loved him, But none the less it was love on both of there parts.

I always find it interesting that most movie goers connect to the woman's version of a love story or just simply loving someone. But the male side is often ignored or looked at in a more cynically way, at this time in history, men did not show much affection for there mates. It is hardly ever show in a way that they are simply wired this way. it goes even farther by sometimes pitting the guy with a less emotional personality verses a guy with a sensitive outlook and we all know who wins these.

My point is to film makers and viewers that a man that does not show a lot of emotions may still be a great lover also. but you have to go to older movies or westerns to get this. it is also bad writing that some Asian movies have adopted this theme also, and they simply don't ring true.

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It was lust, not love.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009K5DV6Q

It's harder for me to say whether she loved him than to say that he loved her. I absolutely believe she had strong feelings for him but since she was so inexperienced with men, she may have believed those strong feelings were "love." However, when she was explaining to Old Wu and Kuang how Yee was "worming his way into [her] heart like a snake," she was looking straight at the camera, which I don't believe was an accident. And she helped him avoid assassination. Twice, actually, as she failed to kill him herself when she had the chance and then when she warned him at the jewelry store. So perhaps she did love him.

His love for her is more clear to me. He was cruel to her in the beginning but he softened and told her about his job. When she said that she hated him, he told her that he believed her and that it was the first time in a long time that he believed anyone. In his own harsh way, he let her know that he did not want her near the torture and brutality that his job demanded (when she complained about being left in the freezing car for hours.) He put his arm around her when entering that jewelry store as though he were laying a claim on her. And he raised no objections about the diamond and setting that she picked out for the ring, a rather substantial piece of jewelry that he wouldn't even buy for his own wife. When she was nervous about wearing the ring outside, he told her that she was with him so it would be fine, again laying a claim on her. All that mattered to him was that she was wearing the ring that he bought for her (and, after her capture, he refused to call the ring his own).

At the Japanese brothel, he was moved to tears when she sang that love song to him. When she was captured along with her crew of agents, he was told that the other 5 agents had been broken and that she was the only one left to be interrogated. He refused to do the interrogation; for him, interrogation involved torture and he wouldn't do that to her. Plus I'm sure he knew that if he saw her, he might lose his resolve to do his job and have her killed. In the end, he sat on her bed and caressed the mattress in the spot where the two of them had been together and visibly jumped when the clock struck ten. (When signing the death warrant, he had commanded that the execution be carried out by ten p.m.)

Now that I have written all this out, I think I have convinced myself that she loved him and he loved her. I don't think it was just lust. I think it went deeper than that, like they cracked each other open and put themselves inside each other. That may be the romantic in me talking but I think parts of the film support my point of view. If anyone disagrees, that is absolutely fine with me. I see what I see and you can see what you see.