By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Ang Lee
Country: china, taiwan, united_states
Year: 2007
Running time: 147
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808357/
Jason says: “LUST, CAUTION is almost long enough to contain its own sequel, although more in the literary mode where an author revisits characters in a way that seems almost disconnected from the initial work. Ang Lee’s latest doesn’t quite split neatly in half like that, but it nearly does, and I suspect many will prefer one section to the other,though they do combine into a unified whole.
“The bulk of the first section takes place in 1938 Hong Kong, andfocuses on a college drama club. Many of them have arrived in the cityas exiles from Japanese-occupied Manchuria, and their leader, Kuang Yu-min(Wang Lee-hom) suggests they put on a show that does more for the wareffort than the patriotic play they just staged. He knows a guy, Tsao(Chin Kar-lok), who works for Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a notablefigure in the collaborationist government. Yee is very cautious, but maybe they can find a way to get close enough to assassinate him. So Auyang Ling-wen (Johnson Yuen) becomes Mr. Mak, working for his family’s import-export business, and freshman Wong Chia-chi (Tang Wei) becomes Mak Tai Tai, who befriends Yee Tai Tai (Joan Chen) and attracts the attention of Mr. Yee. Things don’t go according to plan, of course, but three years later in Shanghai, Wong once again meets up with Kuang; he’s now with the organized resistance and believes Mak Tai Tai could come in handy once again.
“It’s the second half of LUST, CAUTION that has gotten the most note, but the first may actually be more interesting. It’s not quite a caper movie – the mission is too serious for that – but it’s something we don’t see that often: Resistance fighters starting from scratch, rather than being led by an ex-soldier or recruited and run by some canny spy master. There’s the potential for screw-ups and everybody being in over their heads, and the private dramas of college students (a low-key love traingle going on between Wong, Kuang, and the other girl in the group). There’s also some black, black comedy to be wrung from certain elements
– dealing with the fact that Yee will notice if the supposedly-married woman seducing him is a virgin, or how hard it can really be to actually kill someone. There may also have been some more straightforward comedy – the Chinese-speaking audience around me was laughing hard at times, but I don’t know whether that was from nuances a person reading subtitles misses or bad accents/dialect.
“The second half is a more familiar espionage thriller, though more explicit than most: Chia-chi goes undercover, has to have sex with her target in order for the deception to work, and by the time the resistance is ready to strike, the cover seems like her real life and the good guys seem pretty damn callous. It’s a solid story that has stood the test of time in its many incarnations, but Lee and his writers don’t give it enough unique embellishments. The world also shrinks to little more than Wong and Yee; Yee Tai Tai, Kuang, and resistance leader Old Wu (Chung Hua Tou) are there, but are practically stage dressing.
‘So what sets LUST, CAUTION apart is the sex, and Ang Lee does make effective use of it, at least at first: Not many members of the audience are going to have the ‘hey, you got to sleep with Tony Leung out of the deal, so it wasn’t all bad’ reaction. They’re tough scenes to watch, almost as much as the violence, or scenes of people dying in the streets because there’s no food. Wong is paying a heavy price to try to liberate her country, and actually watching her be stripped of her dignity is much more effective than simply being told about it. It’s a well Lee and company maybe go to a little too often; by the end, the shock effect has worn off a bit, the movie’s gone on for a while and I started to wonder if Wong ever did anything else.
“That doesn’t take away from Wei Tang’s performance – as far as I can tell, it’s her feature debut, and she carries the film on her back without making too much of a show of it. She makes us impressed with her character’s talent and initial enthusiasm, and shows us how the situation wears on Wong even though the character is trying to put on a placid front. Tony Leung is more experienced, of course, and does a great job of being extremely restrained until Yee’s tension explodes when he and Wong are alone.
“LUST, CAUTION is slick enough that it manages to keep the audience interested even when it’s started to drag a bit. It’s a pretty good movie although I wonder if it could have been a better one if the filmmakers had focused on one half or the other.
I wonder how much I would have liked LUST, CAUTION if it had gotten the KILL BILL treatment – split its two halves into two separate films, which could have their own different feels. It’s a strange case – it’s a long movie, but it also feels kind of generic, like it could use fleshing out. Maybe if each half were its own film, they’d each feel more complete.
Of course, making a short story into a double-feature-length feature sort of sounds like overkill. That’s certainly what it felt like it needed to me, though.”
Bruce says: “LUST, CAUTION is a tale of espionage and counter-espionage in beginning in Hong Kong in 1938 and ending in Shanghai in 1942. Students involved in a drama group are exiled to Hong Kong at the end of the thirties during the Japanese invasion and gradually create their own division of the resistance movement. Kuang Yu Min (Wang Lee-Hom) a handsome young actor talks Wong Chia-chi (Tang Wei) a shy young girl, into auditioning for the lead in a play. She reluctantly takes the part. Once she is on stage she is transformed and her rousing performance brings the house to its feet.
“One male member of the drama group has a brother who works closely with a Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a Chinese man who has been a key figure in collaborating with the Japanese. Employing her superb acting skills, it is decided that Wong Chia-chi will play the role of Mrs. Mak the wife of a wealthy import/exporter and will get an introduction to the Yees through the group’s connections. The plan works beautifully. Wong Chia-chi is soon accepted into the Yee household and becomes a regular at Mrs. Yee’s (Joan Chen) mah-jongg table. Wong Chia-chi’s next assignment is to seduce Mr. Yee and get him alone so that other embers of the group can easily assassinate him. The group questions Wong Chia-chi about her ‘experience with men,’ thinking that Mr. Yee would be more than suspicious if he seduced a married woman who turned out to be a virgin. Only one group member, who is somewhat repulsive, has sexual experience, albeit with prostitutes. It is voted that he will deflower Wong Chia-chi and teach her how to perform behind closed doors. And Mrs. Mak does her job well, too well considering she and Mr. Yee fall in love. The affair, however, is overshadowed by the cat-and –mouse games they both are playing.
“Expanding upon a delicious short story written by Eileen Chang, Ang Lee adds another fascinating film to his portfolio. Chang in her short story Lust, Caution makes an extremely strong feminist statement. While extraordinarily faithful to the original material, Ang Lee adds an additional character, Kuang a handsome resistance worker who is in love with Wong Chia-chi. That love is probably reciprocal but the closest we get to that particular truth is a fabulous scene where Kuang can no longer contain himself and kisses Wong Chia-chi. Her icy response is ‘You should have done that three years ago.’ That Wong Chia-chi is brutalized by her male lovers speaks volumes for the place women have in the culture. Each of the two men that love her is willing to sacrifice her for either his ideals or his personal safety. Wong Chia-chi follows her heart at great risk. But the men who love her, good or evil, treat her equivalently – she is a woman, an expendable commodity.
“There is more than one false step in LUST, CAUTION. The first sexual encounter between Wong Chia-chi and Mr. Lee, a brutal S & M rape, doesn’t ring true. Recreating the combination of European glory and Eastern exoticism of World War II Shanghai could never be easy but some of the Shanghai sets are unnecessarily ambitious. A stabbing scene is pathetically overdone. The music and costumes and much of the set design are wonderful. Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Tang Wei are absolutely superb as the conflicted, star-crossed lovers. 4.5 cats”