Lust, Caution (2007) User Reviews

Drawn out, borderline pornographic, but...

[DrSatisfaction · 8/10 · 8 September 2007]

...well worth seeing. I had the pleasure of seeing this film tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival and it was a delightful experience (not to mention I was about a foot away from Tony Leung and Ang Lee).

So as I have written in the title, the film itself may appear to be a bit flawed to most viewers. One of the consensus main complaints was that it was too long and drawn out (157 minutes is no joke, especially with a few ice teas in you from dinner). However, I believe the story was well paced and needed the full length of the movie to fully develop. There were not many scenes that could have been easily cut out. It was also not nearly as slow as some other films (i.e. In the Mood for Love) or as long as other films (i.e. Once Upon a Time in America). Overall, I felt the movie flowed quite naturally and was focused on the storyline, although I went into the movie expecting a loose meandering plot line (as some other reviews have suggested).

Another complaint was that the sex scenes were unnecessarily long, prolific, graphic, and even violent (there was a rape scene). Again, I disagree with these complaints because I felt like these were the scenes that really brought out the lust in the characters. This was especially true for Tony Leung's character, whom many viewers seemed to feel was underdeveloped and one dimensional. As my friend said, "Tony could have done this role in his sleep." True, but that was the whole point of his character. Ang Lee purposely left his character undeveloped for most parts of the movie except those few sex scenes, a particular scene in a Japanese whore house, and the closing scene. Those were the few scenes that made Leung's character vulnerable and human. Because there were so few windows that allowed the audience to glimpse into his character, that made the emotions all the more realistic and powerful. The violence in the rape scene should also be addressed. Again, this was one of those rare scenes that shows Leung's character as human (although it was a very brutal, violent side of him). Here, he appeared angry and frustrated, and not at Tang Wei's character but really more at himself and what he has turned into. He was portrayed as a traitor in the movie, and he never spoke about how he viewed himself except for the scene in the Japanese brothel, when Tang's character asked him if he took her there so she could be his whore. He responded that he took her there because he knew much more about whoring oneself than she did, obviously referring to his political role as a traitor. Thus, through minimal dialogue and character development, Ang Lee was able to depict Leung's character with great insight and accuracy, all the while reminding us that he was still human on some level.

Now although Leung's character development was sacrificed for the benefit of the film, Tang's character development was actually enhanced. Make no mistake, she was the central character of the movie, and it was very interesting to follow her metamorphosis from a young, naive university student to a spy for the resistance force in bed with the enemy. Once again, Lee revisits his theme of lust and how powerful it can be during her character development and especially the sex scenes. There was a scene after she finished having sex with Leung and goes to report to her superior officers. She then describes to them how she must endure and pretend to love Leung wholeheartedly as a part of her role, and how she endures the prolonged sessions of sex only to hope for them to crash in the door and shoot Leung in the back of the head to have his brains and blood splattered all over her body. All in all, it was a very notable and powerful acting job on Ms. Tang's behalf and definitely refreshing to see a younger actress take on a serious role like this and really tackling it.

There were also some lighthearted moments sprinkled throughout the film, which had an excellent score to accompany it. The cinematography, costumes, scenery, etc. were all first rate. The real meat of the film, however, was within Ang Lee's direction, Tang's acting, and of course, the intense sex scenes that powerfully depicted lust, no holds barred, with anger, frustration, hate, and all the other negative emotions associated with it. Interestingly enough, the only moment in the movie where both Leung and Tang's characters felt a mutual love was not in bed, but in the Japanese brothel when Tang performed a song for Leung.

All in all this was a delicate and exquisite movie that was carefully planned and filmed, with attention to every detail. It offers a profound and in depth examination of lust. I recommend that everyone should experience the movie once, regardless of the 2.5 hours length and explicit sex scenes - it was well worth the time.

This is essentially an Asian Film

[paula_nocon · 9/10 · 22 September 2007]

I resent that this movie is marketed as an "espionage thriller", or that it's a thematic follow- up to Brokeback Mountain, or that it got an R rating for its graphic sex scenes. It is much more than that. It is a film set in Asia, by an Asian filmmaker, with a special resonance for Asian moviegoers.

I think this is a very personal film for Ang Lee - betraying his private thoughts on his homeland, on sexuality, on truth, on love.

Here in Asia, one shared event in our history binds us all - the Japanese occupation during WWII and all the horrors that came with it.

To retell the anguish of that time through a torrid affair between a collaborator (traitor) and a spy is a brave commentary on how we Asians respond to traumas both personal and collective.

Mr Lee raises unearths some complex emotions towards identity and truth, as revealed in only the most intimate moments between illicit lovers in times of extreme duress.

That Lee chose to make such a film after his phenomenal success in Hollywood, and during this period of phenomenal progress for modern China, gives Lust Caution a heightened sense of relevance and urgency, a film that can potentially invite questions on what it deeply means to be Chinese, to be Asian.

Lee is a master, Tony Leung is divine, Tang Wei is a slow-burning revelation. I highly recommend this film to Asians and non-Asians alike.

A Nutshell Review: Lust, Caution

[DICK STEEL · 8/10 · 3 October 2007]

Early in the movie, Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) gets asked to act in a patriotic play, in a time when China was threatened by the Japanese Invasion during the late 30s/early 40s. Little does she know that she's got to carry on acting the rest of her life, together with her group of idealistic young dramatists, as stage feelings stirred up real emotions that calls for the sacrificial of self for the greater good, for the country. What they lack in experience, they make up with their youthful passion and exuberance. And their rawness shows in the way they clumsily set up their traps for the coming of the prey, and fumbling even with their first blood.

Welcome to Lee Ang's world of espionage. It's not glam, and gets draped in many real world sense and sensibilities. We enter a world where Trust and Loyalty are difficult to come by, and with shadows lurking in every corner, waiting to pounce at the slightest of mistakes. But the darkness is beautifully captured, and like its endless rounds of mahjong, you're waiting for that perfect tile to come your way, for the opportune to present itself, for the East Wind to come about. That's how this movie's espionage theme is played out, with plenty of waiting. Instant results and instant gratification do not come easy, and even the finale I found to be less than satisfying, though it provided subtle avenues to keep your imagination running as to how the turn of events have greatly affected the usually cautious Mr Yee (Tony Leung).

Like the movie, Leung's Mr Yee remains an enigma we are trying to have a crack at, trying to, like the rest, understand his secret life. He sneaks around from fort to fort, always with protection, and has this solid wall build around his personal life, that even his wife (Joan Chen) finds hard to break, and letting it be anyway, enjoying luxurious life as a tai-tai. All we know about Yee, is that he's a Chinese traitor in the employment of the Japanese, while enjoying immense power under the protection of his master, readily bolts like a running dog that he is in the first signs of trouble.

Enter Tang Wei's Chia Chi, in a strategy hundreds of years old, and that is to use the lure of the beauty to provide the downfall of powerful generals. As a fresh faced ingénue, she enters the dangerous cat and mouse game at great personal sacrifice, probing cautiously (that's the word again) into the life of Mr Yee, and casting those come hither eyes as bait to lure her prey, relying on others to provide the finishing blow and save her from his evil roaming clutches. In order to enter his circle of trust, she has to play to the sadistic sexual fantasies (you see, I don't think he gets any from Mrs Yee anyway) of a repressed man using her as an avenue to release those pent up rage and frustrations from work, where his job as we know is to interrogate fellow countrymen. It's not a glam job, especially when you're casting your lot with the underdogs.

Lust, Caution is a tale of two lonely people, forced by circumstances to do what they have to. One, to fulfill her ideology and get rid of possibly one of the most dangerous man to the Chinese, while the other, looking for honest companionship. It's falling for and sleeping with the enemy both ways, and in a time where trust is hard pressed, this makes everything more complex, especially when it comes to irrational emotions that overrule logic and guard. It's layered with plenty of betrayals whichever way you look at it, and the narrative kept pace by unfolding each

layer intricately. Which makes it ultimately a very sad love that couldn't be story, the perennial fib to reality.

Tony being Tony, I can't help but think that with his hair slicked back, and his stoic demeanor in well pressed suits, look the more vengeful version of his Mr Chow from In the Mood for Love, though this time round he really gets it on with another married woman Mrs Mak, Chia Chi's alter-ego. He might be sleepwalking through his role here, as he speaks very little and does even less, but comes alive in his scenes toward the end. LeeHom is rather wooden though as the de-factor youth leader, and his romantic moments with Tang Wei just falls flat given that it's not fully developed here, if not for the focus of love between Mr Yee and Mrs Mak.

Like how Lee Ang shot Zhang Ziyi to prominence with her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a headstrong young woman who comes of age, Tang Wei snags a role as such and it wouldn't be much of a surprise should she gain acclaim and recognition for her role here. She switches between the greenhorn student and one who's living a lie quite easily, and she exhibits linguistic skills (English, Cantonese, Mandarin and even Shanghainese) and even talent for song. Watch those eyes of hers, and her rant during breaking point, excellent stuff.

Lust, Caution is an espionage story that works, and being set in a tumultuous era helped loads in the eagerness and sense of urgency required, and how patience in getting everything set up for that one shot one kill opportunity makes it a constant tussle, both for the characters, and how events get played out.

More incredible film-making from Ang Lee

[the_Poppuns · 10/10 · 6 October 2007]

What a movie. I saw this movie yesterday and I'm still thinking about it. Tony Leung is just awesome. I had seen him in a few movies, I'd already determined that he's a great actor. I have no problem understanding what's going on with him without reading the subtitles because he communicates so much with his eyes. So watching him in this I was curious to see that something else was coming across than you'd normally expect. Here he's playing against type and I thought he did a wonderful job. Definitely Oscar worthy. As is his costar, who I kept trying to rack my brain for a film I'd seen her in but apparently she's a newbie. You'd never know it from her performance. It's a true leading performance since she carries most of the film being in just about every minute of it. She's great. And how great was it to see Josie Packard (Joan Chen) again. :)

Ang Lee is a genius. He's so good at capturing the emotions of his characters and actors. It's like he unfolds them so that everything on the inside is laid bare. From The Ice Storm to Brokeback Mountain to Lust, Caution he shows you real people and how they love and damage and betray each other, and more specifically how it feels. That's true talent. Anyone can point a camera. This is something else entirely.

The film itself is the best espionage film I've ever seen, but that's not all it is. It's very much like a noir and a war film and romance is probably the genre that is represented least. I've read a few reviews mentioning love and falling in it. There is some of that but I think maybe those people might want to give this one another go. They might have missed the point.

Who should see this? Adults. But I'm not saying that because of the sex scenes. I'm 33. I don't know if I would have completely grasped the emotional complexity of this film 10 years ago. I think you need to have been kicked around a bit by life to fully appreciate what's happening here. Anyone who likes old movies, sad movies, good movies. Bogart fans, noir fans, costume design fans should all enjoy it. I sincerely hope it gets some recognition around Oscar time. It's my favorite this year so far.

Judge LUST CAUTION a day later.

[KJacob73 · 10/10 · 29 September 2007]

When I saw LUST CAUTION yesterday I wasn't sure what to think. There were moments of transcendence and many others of what, at the time, seemed like tedium. I was frustrated that I couldn't decide if this was a masterpiece right away as I was with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, THE ICE STORM, and CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON. When I woke up this morning I couldn't stop thinking about it. It has haunted me all day and I want to see it again. Perhaps my expectations were so high that I had trouble appreciating what I was watching. More than likely I was anticipating the already notorious sex scenes. In any case LUST CAUTION is another masterpiece by Ang Lee that may take time for some to appreciate it. Years to come it will be studied and watched compulsively. It will strike debate among cinephiles of its worth. Most importantly it will be a film to be treasured, perhaps not by many, but by a very enlightened few.

During the sex scenes I was holding my breath. Lee's slow burn toward these instant classic scenes was like foreplay leading to an explosive climax. Lee's themes of repression and double lives continue in LUST CAUTION. I look forward to savoring and arguing about this film for years to comes.

A beautiful masterpiece

[Gordon-11 · 7 October 2007]

This film is about a woman enticing a top ranking official in the occupying Japanese government, in order to assassinate him.

I am very impressed by this film after just watching 5 minutes of it. The mahjong scene is very well made. Behind all the gossip, it has so much subtle tension. Everyone is secretly calculating another and planning their next move, both in the game and outside the game. Another striking thing that I noticed is that the panning motion of the camera. I am sure it is very tricky to get it right! A continuous shot of taking a piece of mahjong, then the hand of tiles, then throwing the unwanted one away. All done in one shot. It's really good camera work.

There is a lot of complex emotions, both expressed and implied. For example, Wang Jiazhi's pain of having to give up her virginity is skilfully implied. Later, her pain of being intimate with Mr Yee is expressed in a rage. The psychological games in the subsequent parts is well portrayed. Wei Tang is masterful in playing her role. She portrays a wide variety of facial expression and bodily gestures so naturally and skilfully. Her power of seduction is undeniable. The surreal atmosphere that she creates when she is Mai Tai Tai is stunning. I have never heard of her before, and I hope she will get to play in more film in the future.

Despite the film being two and a half hour long, it did not feel like it at all. In fact, I am glad that Ang Lee gives us enough time to appreciate the beauty of the film. The plot is gripping, and there is a lot to be pondered on. Men have to caution against lust, while for women, they may have to caution against something else. I will no reveal it here, watch the film to see for yourself.

This film is a beautiful masterpiece. Just a side note, the sexuality in this film is so extremely the polar opposite compared to Ang Lee's last film "Brokeback Mountain". I find this very interesting.

Words of Caution about 'Lust'

[janos451 · 7/10 · 30 September 2007]

Too long, too slow, too self-indulgent, and too brutal in its graphic sex scenes, Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is a film not to be missed.

Whatever misgivings there may be about it, this festival-winning film is a mesmerizing, rich experience. After 2 1/2 hours of being bombarded with a World War II love-and-hate story that's both exciting and dragging, chances are you will be still pinned to your seat, anxious to find out how it ends.

The "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain" director has turned his attention to war-threatened Hong Kong in 1938 and Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1942 (complete with a "safe Japanese zone"), seen through the eyes of a group of young Chinese resistance fighters.

Based on the late Chinese-American writer Eileen Chang's short story of the same name, the focus of "Se, jie" is the relationship between Mr. Yee, head of the ruthless Japanese-collaborator security forces (played by Tony Leung, leading man of some 80 films) and a young actress with the resistance, played by Wei Tang, in her very first film role.

They make a strange pair, both in the roles and as actors. Of the story - a cat-and-mouse game between the seductress/underground agent and the Japanese puppet/lord of life and death among the occupied - the less said the better in order to enjoy the movie. As actors, it's a veteran facing a new challenge and a novice who shows great skill and assurance.

Leung has always been a brooding, symphathetic, worn-but-handsome presence, especially in his collaborations with director Wong Kai War. Here, for the first time, he plays not just a heavy, an ugly character, but a scary, unhappy, murderous man, literally a dark figure, lurking in the shadows. It's a great performance, fully realizing both aspects of the character: the monster and the man.

Lee's love for the cinema classics is shown both in his use of excerpts from Hollywood greats (as the young actress frequents movie theaters) and in his creation of memorable images. This is a director with a painterly sensibility and the ability to transform objects into instantly memorable pictures. Never will you see mahjong again without recalling "Lust, Caution." Few of Lee's favorite classics can match the simple effectiveness of his final image here, of a sheet with slight depressions left by what rested on it shortly before: white on white, and yet meaningful and affecting.

Leung and Tang fairly monopolize the screen, but the rest of the large cast is outstanding, led by San Franciscan Joan Chang as Yee's wife, and the vivid individual characters in the resistance, including the American-born Chinese pop star Leehom Wang.

Poignant depiction of turbulent wartime politics

[disco_barrio · 10/10 · 8 October 2007]

I had been hyping myself up a great deal for Lust, Caution ever since I first heard of the project, so I'm glad to say that it did not disappoint. The film was a beautifully executed "espionage thriller," if you want to go with how it's being marketed to a broad audience. Steeped in the historically and culturally turbulent period of the second Sino-Japanese War, one must applaud Ang Lee for the dizzying array of minutiae he oversaw as director.

Because of the nature of the film's protagonist Wang Jiazhi (played by a newcomer named Tang Wei - not shabby for your first feature) as an agent working under a second identity to ensnare a dangerous collaborationist (Tony Leung), all the scenes where Wang masquerades as the bourgeois Ms. Mai are fraught with a psychological tension, doubling with the political agenda at stake as well as her womanhood. She portrays both roles with heartbreaking deftness; a great casting choice if there ever was one. While not as physically alluring as some of her competitors for the role - Chinese language actresses including Zhou Xun and Shu Qi - I don't think anyone else could have pulled it off like Tang. She convincingly transforms herself from a naive college girl to coy seductress...and back again.

The film struck quite a few personal nerves on my part too. While mainstream cinema should be, you know, self-sustaining or whatever you want to call it, there's really a lot to this movie that gets lost in subtitling to an extent, but also just in context and culture. Etiquette at the mah-jongg table; the omnipresent yet understated background of wartime occupation; political interests in the Chinese Civil War era; the weight of regional identity in dialects and interpersonal relationships. Tang Wei spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, and Shanghainese. My only thought is: What a hottie.

The sex scenes are...something else. As echoed by most critics, they serve the story perfectly in capturing the urgency that Tang and Leung have in their precarious affair. There's a lot of violence in them, and it is through these carnal and savage acts that Tony Leung's Mr. Yee character is established as a very dangerous man. I won't spoil too much but there were several times when it became too difficult to watch.

There were quite a few moments that made my heart flutter and eyes wobble. I'll just leave it at that.

Conflicting reactions

[damfaz · 7/10 · 11 June 2020]

This movie is set in the China of 40s, during the war. Personally, I don't know too much about war times in China, but I appreciated how this movie provides us just what is necessary for the plot development without going into deep historical details (otherwise it would have been 4 hours long).

This movie kept me glued to the screen and I think that this happened because of the strong empathy I established with Wang Jiazhi. All the scenes in which she appears with Mr. Yee create a big tension both because of the risk that she's taking as a spy and the evolution of their relationship.

I really enjoyed the movie, but as I expected from Ang Lee, the finale is pretty tragic. I watched Life of Pi and Brokeback Mountain before this movie, and both endings caused conflicting reactions to me. In this particular case, I thought that she would have fallen in love with Mr. Yee and she would have got desperate after his hypothetical death, but I never imagined that she saved him. After that, Yee's cold and quick decision to kill her got me upset. So at first I didn't like the ending, just my personal opinion.

Then I realized that, even if she had been a very talented actress for the whole time, she was just an innocent young woman after all. Her beloved Kuang never declared himself in love to her and her life has been empty before this "job". On the other side, we find an unscrupulous lonely man, which is somehow fascinating to Wang's eyes. Sex scenes evoke all the pain which they hide and keep safe inside themselves: this fact is highlighted by the gazes of the two actors, the passion, the lust, the violence. An outburst of love like this motivates her choice to save him in the finale, but it is not sufficiently important for a man who has always based his life on cruelty and "work".

Just to defuse this review, Yee's wife character was funny. She is the personification of "Who wants to live longer, should mind just his own business" (that is playing Mahjong in this case).

A Cautious Tale about Blind Love

[janyeap · 10/10 · 31 August 2007]

Excellent! Excellent! This film really injects the visual meaning of 'caution' throughout the film - at least till close to the finale. There are numerous instances when I was reminded of the film's appropriate title, "Lust, CAUTION"! Indeed, a remarkable visual achievement that cooks up metaphors to provide so much food for thought.

Two characters, who are supposed to understand the nature of their duties and responsibilities, gradually becoming suckers to their self passions and sentiments… not unrealistic for the many who may recall the 1963 Profuma Affair that brought down the Harold MacMillan government in Britain, or even the Mark Anthony and Cleopatra tales! In this film, the supporting actors play very minor roles in the film. This actually impresses me more to make me consider that a person's downfall oft results from his/her weakness, especially in relation to his/her uncontrollable passion and sexual urge. Love is blind... as the saying goes.

The film's flashbacks are well crafted to introduce Mr. Yee and Jiazi and to focus on their persistent, strong and certainly up-to-no good, determined characteristics before they succumb to their sentimental temptations and passions.

The scenes of stylistic elegance of the Colonial Hong Kong being clouded by Japanese Occupation, and scenes of Shanghai with its bleak post-Qing Dynasty signs of chaos, together with the expected Second Sino-Japanese War terror, flow through the film at a good pace. The urban crowded characteristics of these cities, with their tenement-blocked living, marked with social and political upheavals and turmoil, and class exploitation are artfully exhibited - the allure and historical trauma of both cities so subtly revealed without over-shadowing the performances of Tony Leung and Tang Wei! It was certainly captivating to watch how this film celebrates Hong Kong's urban identity while also mediating its historical relationship with Shanghai. Just like with Mr. Yee and Jiazi, perils and pleasures of modern urban life are inescapable for the two cities.

Director Ang has also amusingly mixed Chinese sensibilities and Hollywood influences to give Shanghai that dangerously cool, and seductively sexy appeal that does help to raise question of the stake this city faces with the presence of Mr. Yee and Jiazi. After all, didn't Shanghai become a locus center of vice and degradation - a foil to the virtues of the countryside? Is the audience, at the beginning of the film, expected to see Mr. Yee and Jiazi as upholders of these opposing modern vs traditional traits, and as far as foreign occupation relates, the differences East vs. West colonialism? For fans of Zhang Ailing who authored the original story upon which this film is based, It's not difficult to relate some of the tragic incidences of the film to Zhang's very tragpersonal life. This film should especially appeal to those familiar with the 1940s history of Hong Kong and Shanghai, and to those who had experienced the inner turmoil, resulting from having to adapt to changing environments.

And I do enjoy seeing this film as an attempt to remind the audience how a couple, passionate in romantic love, often puts in their best performances and stylistic acts to impress one another (as portrayed by Mr. Yee and Jiazi). These love 'sparks' have a tendency not to exist with old married couples as seen in Mr. and Mrs. Yee's love relationship.

Sentimental Mutation Visualized in Sexual Sequences

[lupinyiu · 7/10 · 26 September 2007]

It is a film of a young woman's prowess and tragedy narrated with a flashback between two current sequences. In a mixed genre of adultery and espionage, the story is told in a unrestricted narrative in which the audience are disseminated with full information some characters don't have. Despite the unrestrictedness in the knowledge domain of the audience, tension mounts on when Jiazhi Wang (Wei Tang) embarks on her mission to assassinate her target as the audience are puzzled with the leads' staging and other diegetic hints on whether or not her identity is or will be exposed.

Director Lee packs the film with sex, a common element of the genre. Lee establishes Wang as a cool girl in the expository sequences by use of apathetic expression (actually a non-expression) under freeze staging. Down the plot, Wang apparently remains tough and firm in her mission, as revealed from her dialogues. Nevertheless, Lee portrays Wang's evolutionary attitude toward Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) essentially by use of the 3 sex sequences in which Wang behaviorally shifts from being passive to active. As a mirrored portray, Mr. Yee's calmness (and seriousness as well) is seen alleviated by his disclosure of his job to Wang in the last hour of the story. Lee in practice builds up a subtle, slow-paced escalation of passion and psychological mutation of both leads, culminating to the diegetic climax.

The carefully choreographed overt sex sequences, in a whole, are instrumental in portraying the evolution of subdued passiveness of Wang toward her target. The sequences witness Wang's gradual sentimental change from taking up a hunting job in fulfillment of her patriotic duty to the nation to an ever deepening voluntary enchantment with her target. Lee goes further from his "Brokeback Mountain" to enhance the degree of explicitness by bringing the leads' body/pubic hairs, Wang's underarm hairs in a close-up in particular, into mise-en-scene to connote the rawness and liberation of the couple's desires.

With the acts of excruciation and execution of spies brought off screen, Lee keeps violence to the minimum despite the blood shedding sequence in the Hong Kong apartment in an earlier plot. There is a slight change of cinematographic style in the film: fast cutting and swish pans at the beginning; slow cutting, static camera and occasional tracking from the middle to the epilogue. While both leads exercise caution along their ways in concealing their respective motives, rationality is, consciously and unconsciously, marooned by lust, the desire for love and sentiments, which eventually render betrayal and fiasco. The film is a narrative on the subordination of rationality to long suppressed emotion and passion.

A Lust Caution intercourse I enjoy

[tennisaquarius · 10/10 · 24 September 2007]

I went to Vieshow around 7:30pm and saw the schedule of Lust Caution was lighting in red all the way to midnight. It meant full house the whole night. It's kind of rare in my memory. Only summer blockbusters could have this strong performance, yet their ratings were not restricted! I didn't worry about my ticket. I already ordered on-line. Ang Lee, do make yourself at home. We all love you.

And I love the sex scenes. On bed, they use their body languages to show their emotions. Lust and caution are the basic tones, the skin, and what hidden beneath are hatred, anger, revenge, loneliness, redemption, and love. I have never seen so many emotions in scenes of sexual intercourse or lovemaking, whatever you call them.

I felt tense during the sex scenes which are indispensable for the whole dramatic arc. I didn't enjoy the lust part, and the caution undercurrent had my heart dangling. If I want to enjoy sex on movie, I would just go to watch porn. People who want to go for that very reason, be prepared to get disappointed.

I was also moved by those young patriotic students. By them, Ang Lee tells us he was once like them, and still is now, sending message to the audience through art, through culture, and with passion.

Ang Lee seems like to make movie with a lot of metaphors. You can see that judging from the movie titles. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not only an idiom, but also meant for the characters and more; Brokeback Mountain is a lost paradise as well; and Lust Caution, for that foreign audience would miss it again, by its Chinese title 色戒 we realize 戒 is also a pun. 戒 is Caution and the diamond ring Mr. Yee gives to Wang too.

The diamond ring, when the secretary returns back and says, "it's yours." "No," Mr. Yee says, "it's not mine."

I guess it means the diamond ring belongs to Wang. So does his love to her. For the first time, I didn't feel a diamond ring is so superficial like in the TV commercials.

From some reviews and news, I noticed Ang Lee and the crew changed Eileen Chang's assassination scene? If so, that is really smart. Anyway, I am going to read Eileen Chang's short story. I am always interested in comparing his films and the original stories or movie scripts. No exception. It's kind of Lust Caution intercourse I enjoy between Ang Lee and me.

WWII, Shangai: a young woman plays a dangerous love game to lure into a trap a powerful political figure who is collaborating with the occupying Japanese forces

[omniumhorarum-1 · 7/10 · 30 August 2007]

Another remarkable movie of the Taiwan-born director Ang Lee. The plot is rather simple and develops with a rigorous, slow pace, with an obsessive attention to details. The director manages in creating a dark, oppressive atmosphere; "a scary place", "like hell", as he has described the movie. The power of lust is investigated: lust is used to lure a man into a dangerous trap, lust also offers a glimpse of ecstasy to characters caught in a world of violence and fear, lust/love brings people to death. Though not reaching the sublimity of Brokeback Mountain this movie leaves the viewer with a long-lasting impression. Great, intriguing performance of the newcomer actress Tang Wei.

A truly terrible film that I really wanted to like

[neaonbhb · 1/10 · 21 June 2011]

So. In the interest of full disclosure I should probably point out that my wife is Chinese, had heard good things about this movie, and half- drug me to the theater to see it. I wasn't opposed to seeing it, I just didn't have any strong feelings about it one way or the other. Boy oh boy, did that change after I stumbled from the theater, noticeably dumber. How an exceptional film maker like Lee could make a movie like this with so much potential and fail on so many levels I have no idea, but this movie is a meteoric rocket crashing to earth with a dull, lifeless thud.

Of course, my wife (again, being Chinese), loved the movie. Well, maybe she didn't love it, but she liked it. Its probably not on her top 10 list or anything, but she might like to watch it again.

Long review short, if you're a Chinese woman, you might like this film. If you're a discerning movie goer that is critical of what you see and doesn't take anything at face value, you very well might hate this film.

So how does this movie fail?

The problems with the movie are almost unilaterally a reflection on the motivation of its characters. They continually choose to do things and act in ways that are utterly and ridiculously opposite to how a real person might really act in that situation. The group refuses to act out their plan unless their prey makes 3 steps forward. Mak runs screaming down a street like a child when the group succeeds in the murder of a target. Mak falls in love with Yee while he treats her like trash, property and an object. Mak progresses from just standard female stupidity into full-blown sexist stereotype when she sells out not only herself, but the entire group, for the gift of... wait for it... a diamond ring! Was this movie bought and paid for by Zales?? "Oh, here's a big diamond, THIS proves my love for you (not when I was smacking you around a while back...)"

Its weird, but the movie works better as a cautionary tale for women and their notorious materialism -- "Watch out ladies, if you think a diamond is the same thing as love, you might find yourself getting shot in the back of the head in a ditch" -- than it does as a drama or suspenseful film. Of course, there's no need to sit through almost three hours of beautiful garbage to get that point across. Even the heavily publicized love-making scenes were difficult to enjoy. Wei has a beautiful body, but the way she accepts being treated like a punching bag/sex-toy is just uncomfortable to watch and never sensual or erotic as it is meant to appear. If you enjoy those love-making scenes, you've probably also considered tying up a woman in your basement. And really, her accepting that treatment makes sense from the perspective of a spy trying to kill Yee, falling in love makes ZERO sense.

Which is of course the final straw that broke the camel's back of realism. The fumbling inanity of this group of rebels fits better in the 3 stooges than in a serious drama/suspense. The silly requirements they put on themselves for killing Yee are laughable and CLEARLY represent an effort by the writers to extend the story. None of their reasoning or efforts make any sense. Why must Yee step inside the house on the dark, deserted street with no one for miles around before they kill him? Why must Yee be at a perfect spot in the jeweler's store and have been there for X minutes and have everyone be given the Go to kill him before killing him? Why can't Mak smuggle in a gun, or a knife, or some poison, or a ligature, or SOMETHING into their numerous lovemaking sessions to kill him with? Its all done in the service of extending the story, and if one thinks about it, as the writers are hoping you will not, the whole story falls apart.

The ending brings us welcome release - FINALLY those incompetent fools that wasted three hours of our life are dead and we can stumble back to our cars. Save yourself! If you're doing it for the nudity, just rent a porno! If you're doing it for a wife... well... sorry to hear that. Grin and bear it I guess.

Cinematic, Elegant, Entertaining and Real 2 The Period

[screenwriter-14 · 10/10 · 6 October 2007]

With a sensational cast of actors and a tale of China in the late 1930's under occupation, LUST, CAUTION captures the cruelty of the period with a zest and cinematic journey which enraptures the audience in a tale of revenge-and love. Bravo, Ang Lee, for bringing to the screen such a lustrous tale of Chinese history in which you have also thrown in love scenes which bring to the film an element of cruelty and harshness which are reminiscent of the sexual pleasures of BASIC INSTINCT, but perfectly display the brutal character of Mr. Yee.

The costumes, sets, lighting and the drama of the story make LUST, CAUTION a simply elegant journey with characters that jump off the screen with fury, passion and of course, love tinged with revenge. The film is long, but you can't take your eyes away from the film for one moment as you might miss the brilliant dialog and performances. LUST, CAUTION, makes you think of what it is to be occupied by a power that treats its captured denizens in a world of anger and bitterness and creates a world of hatred and revenge as we see in this intelligent and important film. May LUST, CAUTION continue to gain an audience as it heads into the Kudo season.

A Rare Pure Cinematic Experience

[George_Huang · 10/10 · 25 September 2007]

A wolfhound brings out what Ang Lee so called "amuck atmosphere." This might not necessarily be Eileen Chang's intention, but Lee achieved his practical "masterpiece" through expressing his feel for this short story.

Just right before the task seems about going to end, Wang Jiazhi memorized, from an innocent college girl to a highly skilled actress and patriot, this extremely dangerous ambition kept circling around her mind and couldn't possibly go away may because of her ideal of doing something big and important, may because of proving that she's not only a puppet, or may because of a man that she can't get him out of her head.

A terrific ensemble cast. Tang Wei, who played the soul of the film, transformed herself into the leading character successfully through an unfamiliar face to audiences and has the acting of unattached perfection just like Zhang Ziyi. Though she got set up to get involved with this role by Lee, the result shows that her efforts worth every second.

The best performance of Tony Leung by far, every look and movement is very precise. Though it's also postmodern and the same kind of costumes, the effect is totally different from the images in Wong Kar Wai movies. Even he has been through several villain characters, the devotion and outcome that he put in this role is never been seen before.

As for the controversial sex scenes that gather all the spotlights, they all take important places in the film just as Lee said. Even there's no sign of sex in Chang's story. Except the power demonstration of the leading male role, Mr. Yee, Wang learned to use her sex power, the abreaction from the huge frustration of both their occupations and the struggle and joy they soaked in the functioning sex. They could very likely be the perfect match for each other that they can never find another one in this lifetime.

The second-time Mexican cinematographer for Lee, Rodrigo Prieto, French musician Alexandre Desplat, the senior Korean designer Lai Pan, and Lee's longtime partner editor Tim Squyres. The global combination achieved the great technical support besides the compelling story and the feast of performances.

The funny part is Lee chose short stories back to back for his film. The time line of the previous one goes across over 20 years. As for the latter one is just an afternoon. Sure it seems like a story in a decade, but after all they are the flashbacks of the leading female role.

This movie definitely goes beyond the achievement of "Brokeback Mountain," which is already very brilliant. While showing the conflict of sense and sensibility, it also pays tribute to a bunch of classics and the master creators which reflect the mind of the roles and are inherited such as "Casablanca," "The Godfather," "Suspicion," "Penny Serenade," "Last Tango in Paris" and "In the Realm of the Senses." This is not only the best screen adaptation of Chang to date but also a must-see of all time.

Two repressed souls reaching out for human connection

[Oopsy-Daisy · 27 November 2007]

I watched the film many weeks ago, but wasn't able to post a comment. I had a hard time absorbing it. It took me a few days to finally get over the depressed state of mind I was in. To me, Wong was a shell before she became Mak Tai Tai. She needed to be in that role for her own mental survival. Only by acting could she find her way to her own identity. I'm still not 100% convinced that it was love between these two. To me, it's two very lonely and repressed souls making a human connection. The explicit sex scenes were necessary. The sex acts portrayed their need to feel each other's own individual's existence by torturing or be tortured physically. The orgasms Wong experienced were not joyful. It was a fulfillment of finally letting herself feel what she real felt and shared it with another human being. It's the same with Mr. Yee. He was finally able to find someone that he could let his guards down and release all his fears and guilt. Does the "Quail Egg" play a big part in Wong's decision to let Yee go? Absolutely! I'm a female, and I tried to understand her mental state at the time. It was never about the value, but the meaning behind the value. She was nobody. Now, she is at least worth that Quail Egg to somebody, even if that somebody is her enemy. Women are strange creatures. I would've done the same thing if I were in her position. At the end, she scarified herself and the whole entire compatriots to attain that moment of truth for herself.

I love this movie. I love Brokeback Mountain, too, but I really get this movie. I watched every film made by Ang Lee except "Ride with the Devil" because the DVD I rented was damaged. Ice Storm was simply brilliant. I thought it deserved an Oscar consideration. His films always left me unsatisfied and challenged my mental endurance every time. Although his films were never in the same genre, everyone has a common theme – repressed souls reaching out for human connection. Lust, Caution is a sad, depressed, draining movie. If you like to see it, be prepared to have patience and concentration. In this film, "if you pay attention, nothing is trivial!"

not a masterpiece, but it does leave an impression from one of China's sublime modern filmmakers

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 25 October 2007]

Lust, Caution tells its story through the perspective of an actor playing a dangerous game. That Ang Lee, for all of his incredible care to make this a tale with subtleties of an risqué art film and the grace of an old Hollywood love story, puts it through the usual prism of "back four years earlier" then "three years later" is only a minor distraction. We've seen it so often before, in all kinds of movies, but at least here it's never as terribly boring as some of the detractors would say. And to give credit where it's due, Lee doesn't make it a big pulp of a melodrama like Paul Verhoven did- with very similar material unintentionally- with Black Book. Maybe it's because it's got such a cold tone, where everything is so repressed we don't even really have an idea of who this woman Wang Jiahzi is aside from her aspirations to be an actress (fulfilled, ironically, through the espionage of sorts as Mr. Yee's mistress), and it's a tone without much redemption. While this doesn't mean this adds power to the material, it doesn't ever lift off like Lee at his strongest or visually acute (Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain).

But this said, I don't think you'll find a better movie this year about the topic- and it is a good movie for those who want to take the patience for its 158 minute running time- of deception and lust through tribulations of war. I also liked the whole facet of occupation as the backdrop, that the Japanese are the stranglehold on Japan, but there's still inherent problems within one group by itself. There's always repression through government, so why not through romantic subterfuge? The early section of the film, where we see the burgeoning youth of the drama group as it forms into a group of would-be spies, maybe is a little undercooked emotionally, with the biggest point finally coming with the most explicit scene of violence in the picture (much more staggering than anything one would've seen in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). The second half, however, is when it starts to pick up: Wang has a different name and becomes reacquainted with Mr. Yee after some years not seeing one another. She gets close to him, maybe too close (rough sex starts off their affair, as violent as the murder scene earlier), but with a passion that is piercing.

The themes are one thing in Lust Caution, but the performances are another. If not for Tony Leung and newcomer Wei Tang, the film might not have the same emotional wallop; Leung possibly goes head-for-head with his work in Wong Kar Wai's films as his best to date: he's terrifying but, as Wang notes, sort of lonely in his secrecy and security detail. It's be a leap of faith to see how he falls so much in love with the spy (all over one song she sings, you might scoff, though quite a song and a scene), and by the end he plays heartbroken with so much hurt he makes Heath Ledger look like a sap. And Wei Tang, a pretty face to be sure, is an even match as a real newcomer. No matter what can be said about the sex scenes (and yeah, there's a lot to be said, not just about length but about the styles right out of Kama Sutra), it can't be denied the star chemistry. Even with a flawed script, Lee has a cast that works, and a period setting that springs out deception as the most heart-rending drama. As I write this and think it over, the film actually becomes a little better than I remembered too. 7.5/10

Dangerous Desires & Duplicity...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 31 October 2022]

You're undercover on a mission to deceive, the worlds at war, and there's a web you need to weave, to catch a traitor who's in tow, with an invasive Nippon foe, you've caught his eye, now make him convinced and believe.

This is a spectacular piece of cinema, the colours, the flow, the story all ignite and leave a glow, the performances of the two leads is out of this world, especially from Tang Wei who goes from innocence incarnate to sensuous seducer via an awkward introduction and a brutal baptism of torture and torment, all under the direction of one of the greatest film makers of his day, leaving you under no illusion the depths people will go to in order to achieve their aims, legitimate or otherwise.

A Stunning, Evocative Production Compromised by Opaque Characters and Plodding Pacing

[EUyeshima · 6/10 · 8 March 2008]

This review is specifically for the NC-17 version of this film.

Lush and lugubrious are the two adjectives that come to mind after just watching Ang Lee's 2007 follow-up to "Brokeback Mountain". On the surface, the two movies appear to have nothing in common, but they share two attributes - both share the concept of a forbidden relationship, and both are expansions of acclaimed short stories. This time, the literary source is Shanghai-born writer Eileen Chang's 1979 novella set in China during the Japanese occupation. As adapted by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus, the focus here is less on character development and more on a ponderous, drawn-out conspiracy where acts of passion threaten to upend an ambitious mission to kill a powerful official working with the Japanese puppet government. The net trade-off is a film that is sumptuous to look at and impressive in its meticulous attention to historical detail, but sometimes challenging to track and ultimately not as emotionally involving as it could be. Interestingly, the film earned the notorious NC-17 rating for the graphic sex scenes in the last hour, but Lee obviously includes them to amplify the desperate extremities of the principal characters. Running at an epic length of 157 minutes and with particularly fast-turning English subtitles at the beginning, it can often feel wearisome, especially in the methodical way the plot unfolds. At the same time, no film by Lee can be completely dismissed, and there are rewards to be reaped from his idiosyncratic approach.

Through an extended flashback, the story spotlights a group of Chinese students who perform patriotic plays to raise Chinese spirits during the occupation. Inspired by the zeal of leading player Kuang Yu Min, several members of the troupe band together to plot the murder of Mr. Yee, a member of the Japanese collaborationist Kuomintang government of Wang Jingwei. Among them is a shy young girl named Wong Chia-Chih, whose family has fled China and in turn, finds herself at home on the stage. Her innate talent and quietly coquettish beauty are such that she is designated as the lure for Mr. Yee under the guise of Mrs. Mak, the wife of a businessman who is away in Hong Kong. The seduction seems to be working, but a first assassination attempt in Hong Kong fails. By chance, a second attempt is made years later in Shanghai, and the consequences become overwhelming for all involved, especially for Wong who becomes entangled in an erotically charged, emotionally confused affair with Yee. Much of the film's second half is focused on the evolving nature of their adulterous relationship, and at the same time, the motivations behind these characters are left open to interpretation. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to empathize with their fates because the plot remains stubbornly opaque. Moreover, more discipline could have been applied to the editing as some scenes remain painfully lengthy, such as the fumbling, brutalizing killing of a government insider.

Even with the flaws, the performances are uniformly strong. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Wong Kar-Wai's favorite leading man, plays Yee close to the vest as we see little of how he behaves in his official role. However, the actor conveys Yee's simmering menace with subtlety until he translates his explosive contempt in the bedroom. In a most auspicious film debut, Tang Wei looks very much like the porcelain-doll models in the vintage Chinese advertising of the 1930's, and she turns in impressive work given the challenging arc the character experiences. There is a palpable uncertainty in her portrayal of a seductress that serves the film's ambiguity well, and as the glamorously composed Mrs. Mak, she looks stunning in Lai Pan's period clothing. Smaller roles feel more contained within the storyline. Regardless, Asian-American pop sensation Lee-Hom Wang plays Kuang Yu Min with spirit, and the versatile Joan Chen makes Mrs. Yee a sharp background figure, especially when she rattles on during the meticulously lensed games of mah jong. All the sensory aspects of the production are impressive - Alexandre Desplat's lustrous music, Lai Pan's period-authentic production design, and especially the rich cinematography of Rodrigo Prieto (who performed the same duties on "Brokeback Mountain" and "Babel"). Make sure to look for the 2008 DVD with the NC-17 version, which includes ten minutes of footage not allowed by the MPAA to run during the original theatrical run. Not just for prurient tastes, the scenes add a necessary layer of complexity to the relationship between Wong and Yee. Beyond that, the one significant extra to the DVD is a sixteen-minute making-of featurette that provides just a cursory look at the production including comments from the Lee, Schamus and the principal actors (Wei is barely recognizable as the same person in modern dress).

Ang Lee's masterpiece, Cultural nuances in the way of understanding

[snowerlewn · 9/10 · 16 April 2008]

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution got a lot of negative reviews in the US. I was shocked. I always thought Lee, of all people, could convey the nuances of Chinese culture to a Western audience.

I admit I love this movie, as I do all his work, except The Hulk. And I'm not implying you have to give it the thumbs-up because it won the Golden Lion. However, after reading dozens of reviews from mainstream media in North America, I have a strong feeling that most critics failed to understand the movie - not only the subtleties, but even some of the plot. Of course, the two are often interconnected.

Rex Reed of The New York Observer called Mrs Yee "silly" because he assumed she is oblivious to her husband's trysts with other women. This couldn't be further from the truth. From how she reacts to her husband's emotional breakdown in the last scene, it is obvious she is in the know. There are Chinese wives who feign ignorance of their husbands' affairs, and this is probably something an American film critic cannot grasp. Shouldn't she be throwing a tantrum? They might ask.

Rex continues: "Neither of the two stars look like they're having much fun." I wonder what movie he was watching. Of course they were not having fun. This is not a romantic comedy. The lady is scheming to kill him, and he is figuring out whether she is another beautiful assassin sent his way. They are both walking on razor's edge, which is not a fun activity.

Most critics call the movie a spy thriller without realizing the multiple layers of the story. It is mostly psychological, with the two leads constantly testing each other and using a language rich in undertones. Almost every line has so much texture it could take a few more lines to decipher.

Many see a resemblance with films of similar plots, such as Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and Hitchcock's Notorious. But they fail to see the link to previous Lee masterpieces such as Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain. Think of it. "Lust" is "sensibility" while "caution" is "sense". Both leads - and even some of the supporting characters - have to maintain a life of caution for self-survival. When they succumb to lust or passion, they pay the ultimate price.

The three sex scenes received such widespread misinterpretation that trimming them might not be the terrible idea it should be. People got so carried away with the S&M and acrobatic couplings that they forgot to detect the symbolic meanings. The scenes epitomize their relationship, from domination, to distortion, to harmony. That's something a simple head shot could not convey. And it does not necessarily imply the lady loves to be tortured. That would be the same as saying she is a gold-digger who falls for a precious diamond.

The definite moment when she falls for him is at the Japanese club when he reveals his weakness. (He has a hunch his future as a collaborator is doomed.) She has a soft spot not for his power and money, but for the latent humanity he finally lays bare. The big stone just confirms his feelings for her, in her mind.

American critics are quick to pick up the clues of Hollywood movies that appear in the meticulously portrayed old Shanghai and have found an allusion to Hitchcock's Notorious, but nobody seems to have noticed that Mr Yee's every move is watched by his secretary, who knows his lover's secret identity and will probably bring about his downfall.

Human emotions writ large can transcend boundaries. It is the niceties that cause cultural misunderstandings.

a story of love and betrayal in times of war

[dromasca · 7/10 · 6 February 2009]

Ang Lee's characters in his last movies are doomed to live intense and unhappy stories that defy the social conventions and cannot end but in tragedy. After 'Brokeback Mountain', 'Se, jie' whose English translation (dont't know how accurate) is 'Lust, Caution' deals with a love story that is born out of revenge, or more exactly politically motivated. She is a Chinese student, amateur actress and patriot, involved with the resistance movement against the Japanese invaders and their Chinese collaborators during the second World War. He is a Chinese collaborator dignitary, a tortionist and a criminal that the group of students she belongs to decide to kill, first as a spontaneous mean of expressing their patriotism, later after the first tentative fails as part of the national fight against the enemy. In order to attract the well guarded collaborationist in the trap, she enters a relationship that will consume both of them.

A few words about the cinematography of this film. Ang Lee is a master of beautiful cinema and of directing actors to the very last detail of their emotions. Every scene he is creating is beautiful esthetically, is true historically and makes justice to the story telling and to the actors. It is obvious that he enjoyed bringing to screen the world of Shanghai and Hong Kong of the 1940s, a world which almost completely disappeared physically in the many decades of wars and revolutions that stormed China since, a world which can exist today only in books or works of art as this one. From this perspective Ang Lee fully succeeded with this film, he may have created the equivalent of what Casablanca is for the Western audiences when relating to the cinematographic image of the world in war. The city of Shanghai at war, its streets, people, rain, lights at night and at day come to life at screen as a beautiful and expressive kaleidoscope.

Tony Leung and Wei Tang are fantastic actors, but here we encounter the emotional limits of the story, which I felt are the weaker part of the film. Wei Tang's character starts as an innocent girl, attracted to revolution first by the charismatic figure of one of her fellows, and then starting to live a double life as revolutionary and bourgeois coquette. Slowly her relationship with the monstrous Mr. Yee becomes more true than her real life. From an inexperienced girl she becomes a woman involved in and intense relationship, which is a combination of love and hate, sex and attraction between two people that have little reason to be anything but enemies. This is where the story lacks emotional credibility. He has all reasons to suspect her, and yet seems to fall into believing in the sincerity of her feelings, despite behaving as evil even in some of his private moments. If I could somehow understand this, I completely failed to believe her reasons of fascination, that lead her to the ultimate betrayal. Director Ang Lee and actor Tony Leung fail to explain the motives of her fascination and betrayal. The sordid end where she prefers to share the fate of her comrades adds a beautiful dimension to the character, but yet there is something pathetic and unresolved in the way we are driven as viewers to that end. Maybe the English title (not sure if also the Chinese one) can answer the riddle, maybe it was just a story of lust, one of these stories we as mortals should be cautious about.

My view

[lcview · 9/10 · 28 September 2007]

Many people already wrote the plots of "Lust, Caution". I don't repeat again, I just have a few words here...

I have read many reviews from the professional film critics. Some are extremely insulting, and those people didn't understand the film at all. I felt sorry for Ang Lee and all people who worked hard for the film.

"Lust, Caution" is a pure Chinese drama with the bloody China-Japan war and the Chinese cultural context of 1940s: slow pace, old Shanghai, mahjong, the traditional song, hatred, love, loneliness, and the souls of students and traitors.

Do not forget the cultural differences: Western people play the card games; Chinese people play the mahjong games. I don't know either, I always see the body languages of the players.

I personally dislike the raw sexual scenes, however, the film is still a masterpiece!

Lust...If This Is Love

[hudiefanny · 7/10 · 16 November 2007]

Ang Lee is one of my favorite movie directors while Aileen Chuang is one of the most famous Chinese woman writers. However, the movie Lust Caution, a product with their joint efforts, is unfortunately not a master piece at all, not even close.

The film scheme and the novel plot seemed to be alike in the main line but quite different in details. I could have appreciated it if it is not adopted from a master piece of Aileen Chuang. I don't know whether Ang Lee misunderstands what Aileen Chuang tried to express via this story or he plays the love card on purpose. Mr. Yee seemed to love JiaZhi back in the film, which totally betrayed the original work and almost makes me sick.

I think one can hardly apprehend her point without any background knowledge of the author's own life experiences. In the story, JiaZhi was abandoned by her father. He took his son to UK with him and left JiaZhi after the death of their mother on the concern of the deeply-rooted preference of boys over girls in China. Aileen Chuang herself was once mistreated by her own father and step mother and even mu-red up in a small room for quite a few years. Her mother was a self-centered woman so that she never really took good care of her children especially after the divorce with Aileen's father. Since having escaped from her father, Ailleen Chuang had lived with her auntie without the warmth of a healthy family until she met LanCheng Hu and fell in love. She's so crazy about him and provided him all she had regardless of his political status of a traitor, his marriage with another woman, his incompetence of making a living on his own, and even his frequent love affairs with other women. Even when she was finally fed up with him, she sent him a mount of money with the broke-up letter as she used to afford his living expenses no matter how financially stressed herself.

That's why she depicted JiaZhi in the way as she was. She was one of JiaZhi Wongs herself. They were smart, incisive, penetrating to the toughness of life and all the tricks men played on them. The only weak point they were unable to get rid of was that they longed for care and love so much. They endeavored to find little trace of true love and warm care in this extremely cruel and freezing men-dominant world. They paid all their love and passion in return though they knew their male partners were not really the one for them.

Therefore, under Miss Aileen Chuang's pen, Mr. Yee would never give JiaZhi the ring in such a romantic way as the movie presents. He bought JiaZhi the diamond just because of the lust satisfaction she offered him, as slight as the payment for prostitution. After giving order to kill JiaZhi, he would not sob as Tony Leung did in the movie. The only emotion in his mind was pride, for acquiring the true love of such a young beauty at his mid-age. From Aileen Chuang's view, he didn't even care about whether she hated him at her last moment of life.

Ang Lee seems to be more moderate and merciful. He arranged true feelings from Mr. Yee and YuMin Kuang. Did he intend to console the soul of JiaZhi and the hearts of female audience with a slight beam of hope? Or did he just aim to defend for the brutality of men? When seeing YuMin Kuang mildly holding JiaZhi's shoulders and hearing his hollow promise that "I would not get you hurt", it's really disgusting to me and nearly aroused my anger. He and his peers built up their dreams of devoting to the country on the sacrifice of an innocent young woman's virginity, dignity, and safety of life. They were all bastards and trashes, according to my judgment. If this is love, what is worth expecting from life to us? Movie-goers keep asking did he ever love JiaZhi? Did Mr. Yee love her? Did anyone else ever love her? No, not really. I can tell without any hesitation. It's cruel but it's true. How pathetic that Ang Lee has made great efforts in disguising the fact that those guys never loved anyone except themselves in a couple of tear drops from Mr. Yee and the detestable smile from YuMin Kuang. Well, Ang Lee's a man himself anyway. I fully respect his talents in film-making. But talking about love between Mr. Yee and JiaZhi? It blurs the sanctity of the word LOVE.

Totally opposite to those lousy guys, JiaZhi was beautiful, mild, and smart. With the bad luck in that dreary era, she doomed to be destroyed and end up in the tragic destiny of this kind or another. She was disappointed by everyone around her, undutiful father, utilitarian and spineless schoolmates. I have mentioned above that both Aileen Chuang and JiaZhi Wong were wise enough to see through the slyness and the cruelty of men. Of course she knew clearly about a man like Mr. Yee from the very beginning. She was absolutely aware of the fact that she's no more than a sex object. However, she still devoted her heart to him besides her body, because as least Mr. Yee made her feel that she's still alive. He awoke her vitality with lust and the diamond ring, which meant only a piece of jewelry or an expensive gift to men but more than that to a woman. A ring on finger is symbol of something beyond itself. As to the title of this work "Se, Jie", I prefer the translation version of "Lust, Ring" to "Lust, Caution". The ring is apparently the key of the whole story.

Pointless & insulting to women

[kyrat · 2/10 · 11 January 2009]

MAJOR SPOILERS:

Group decides to target evil traitor. Innocent girl forced to seduce him. He violently rapes her (which we are forced to watch). He's shown to be a sadisitic control freak, treats her like a whore, she tells how he f*cks her until she bleeds and uses rough sex to dominate her.

She does not want to continue in her act - wants the assassination done with. You see her SUFFERING through the (ANYTHING BUT erotic!) sex by staring at a gun she could use to kill him. Then suddenly evil bad guy buys her a GIANT SHINY DIAMOND.... and apparently that overcomes all patriotism, pride or self-esteem... so she tells him to run away. (we we supposed to believe she loved him???? Or was it really because it was a HUGE DIAMOND? Or did he finally just break her?) Evil bad guy escapes being killed and then rounds up all the conspirators in the group and they all die (including her). The end.

So what exactly was the point of those 2.5 hours? We watched this poor woman whose family didn't want her & whose friends only used her - have sex and play mahojng and that's pretty much it.

It gets 1 star for portraying old Shanghai which I enjoy seeing (my grandparents lived there) and 1 Tony Leung but otherwise it was a HORRIBLE disappointment. I have watched every Ang Lee movie and enjoyed all of them to varying degrees (the Civil War one wasn't so good). I expected much better from a great director, great actors and even the movie had great potential! So I am especially angry to have sat through that pointless waste of my time and supposedly 4 years of this woman's life.