It is all relative...

This film can been seen alongside "Cool Hand Luke".

Both films are built on a deep sense of constraints of an individual living in a society, but paradoxically, NOT in any sort of community. The usual expectation is individual-->community-->society. The missing intermediate layer leads to disorientation and alienation, and finally, destruction.

Americans are highly conscious of social hierarchy, and the compartmentalized nature of the environment we live in. Although American society is far less regimental than the Chinese, it is a constant obsession of Americans that they/we are not free---or rather, not on our way towards greater freedom. I call this a peculiar "political claustrophobia" in this country.

It is interesting, though, that most Chinese I know do not exhibit a similar frustration, even though I feel they live under boundary conditions, inflicted by family, community, employment, government, etc., far more severe than the Lukes or the McMurphys. Curious.