I was never really all that interested in seeing Chinatown until Netflix recommended it to me as something I would like. After recording the movie on my TiVo, I went to watch it, but immedietely I saw it was a Roman Polanski film.
Polanski is a bit of a controversial figure for me because he's been accused of doing some pretty bad stuff. In the past I've intentionally refused to see his films, so when I went to watch the film and saw it was a Polanski film I almost turned it off.
Like most of the Polanski films I've seen, the movie was great. The character development was especially well done. The storyline gripping. During the entire film, I couldn't bring myself to turn it off.
Like most of the Polanski films I've seen, it also included some pretty weird stuff, including a character who had an incestuous relationship with her father.
While overall, the film is very well done, it was depressing for me to see such a great movie made by such a morally questionable man. Perhaps I should be judging each film based on the quality of it's work, but I can't help but feel a little guilty that I may have helped to support someone who is still considered on the lam.
If the moral objections don't bother you, then my advice is to check it out, but personally, I wish I would have stuck with my ethics and avoided this one, even though it turned out to be one of the better films that I've seen over the last year.