Reviews for Lust, Caution

[summertime]

SPOILERS
















































Posted on Fri, Oct. 12, 2007

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Lust, Caution' will hold your attention

By CARLA MEYER

Sacramento Bee


The sex scenes are the most memorable parts of the NC-17 rated "Lust, Caution," and not just because they are explicit. They break through the reserve of this stylish but emotionally removed picture from Oscar-winning director Ang Lee ("Brokeback Mountain").



Too many things must be assumed about the lead characters, government official Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) and Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), a spy for the resistance in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. The lust part, however, is so self-evident as to offer some interpretation of the characters' motivations and personalities. In the meantime, "Lust, Caution" presents enough intrigue and great-looking fashions to sustain interest throughout its 2 1/2-hour length.



Adapted from a short story by Eileen Chang, "Lust, Caution" doesn't play like a period piece. Lee and his "Brokeback" cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, fully immerse us in World War II-era Shanghai, where people continue to go about their business and lives, but with a noticeable hitch in their hustle and bustle caused by the Japanese presence.



Lee certainly can set a scene. It's the subsequent actions of his protagonist that puzzle. Wong, whose father has gone to London without her, signs on with a fledgling resistance group led by a dashing fellow student (a handsome but one-note Wang Leehom). So we can see that it's part patriotism and part schoolgirl crush inspiring this girl to join the plot to assassinate Japanese collaborator Mr. Yee. Lee suggests a dash of cinematic influence as well, given the young woman's penchant for trench coats and Ingrid Bergman films.



Wong first infiltrates the home of Mr. Yee, living temporarily in Hong Kong, through that timeless espionage device of mahjong. Posing as the wife of a wealthy businessman (Johnson Yuen, bringing an awkwardness to his character's ruse that provides much-needed levity), the young woman is befriended by Mr. Yee's wife (Joan Chen). Lending a savvy to Mrs. Yee that suggests she's aware of the attraction between her friend and husband, Chen out-acts screen newcomer Tang Wei in their scenes together.



But the gorgeous Tang Wei exudes charisma, and her character has learned the ways of sex and seduction via lessons with a fellow group member (these scenes might be humorous were it not so clear that the woman is doing the dirty work in a plot hatched by men). Mr. Yee seems intrigued by his wife's young friend, just as she seems intrigued by gaining such close proximity to the target.



Trim and natty in 1940s suits, Leung maintains a cool exterior while hinting at his character's discomfiture with his relationship to the Japanese. In his eyes, we can see a man yearning to unburden himself. But even though Mr. Yee is the best-developed character in the film, he's a closed book in some ways. One leaves "Lust, Caution" wondering how this man got mixed up in such business.



The bigger mystery is why Wong, after a relocation to Shanghai and a long break from her espionage duties, re-ups with people who didn't prove themselves too adept the first time around. Once she's in, however, it is clear why she stays. She and her target share sizzling sexual chemistry.



The controversial sex scene in "Brokeback Mountain" is PG-rated compared with the erotic content of "Lust, Caution." Moreover, these scenes, which range from merely intense to sadomasochistic, illuminate the characters in ways that scenes in which they are clothed do not. In his sexual behavior, one sees Mr. Yee's most destructive impulses -- along with his instinct to check them.



For Wong, these assignations finally provide a sense of self. Tang Wei shows gumption in a scene in which her character forces the resistance leaders to listen to the details of her sex life with Mr. Yee - details they clearly do not want to hear. These men, never required to get so intimate with a target, still have the luxury of being able to see only good and evil, not the human complexities in between.

http://www.bnd.com/249/story/151334.html

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Publication Date: October 12, 2007

Lust, Caution ***

Ang Lee manipulates a mood to heady effect in this atmospheric historical romance. Much has been made of the film's NC-17 rating and the sex is undoubtedly steamy. But there's far more caution than lust as carnal appetites aren't satisfied until the last act. While we're (impatiently) waiting, Lee carefully crafts a hushed political mystery set in WWII Shanghai, where an amateur acting troupe stages an idealistic coup against Secret Service Japanese collaborator Mr. Yee (Chinese superstar Tony Leung).

Reluctantly leading the charge is youthful ingenue-cum-resistance fighter Wang Chia Chi (Tang Wei) who is summarily trained in the art of seduction in order to gain Yee's confidence and guide him down the path to a fatal finish.

Best-laid plans go seriously awry when Yee abruptly slips from their grasp and the troupe's radical scheme is exposed, resulting in a grisly murder. The group disbands and Chia Chi is sent to the country to toil away in obscurity.

Several years later the fickle fingers of fate reach out to Chia Chi when she encounters an ex-troupe-member who informs her that Yee has returned to Shanghai. Chia Chi finagles her way back into his orbit and rekindles their liaison, falling desperately in love -- or at least lust -- as the couple beds with sadistic abandon (leaving nothing to the imagination).

Lee shoots his full-front affair with little or no inhibition; snaps to him for going for it without concern for MPAA ratings or prurient sensibilities. Unfortunately even the film's most explicit pleasures can't overcome the tightly warped social fabric and some stodgy pacing.

The atmosphere is charged throughout with the lush, temperamental imagery of wartime Shanghai; Leung's coolly cunning performance; and Tang's ethereal poise. Politics pervade the proceedings with dramatic emphasis on unyielding party loyalties and Japanese-occupied oppression. Lee has gone back to his roots and the results are undeniably intriguing.

Rating: NC-17 for graphic sexuality and violence. In Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese with English subtitles.. 2 hours, 38 minutes.


--Jeanne Aufmuth

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'Lust, Caution' -- Grade: B

'Caution': Lots of style outweighs content

Tom Long / Detroit News Film Critic

Mixing a stately pace with bursts of raw violence and blunt eroticism, "Lust, Caution" indeed deftly blends those two attitudes.

It's an interesting cinematic dichotomy, and it's approached with all the sophistication and artfulness you'd expect from esteemed director Ang Lee ("Brokeback Mountain," "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon").

The question is whether the experiment warrants the film's more than two-and-a-half hours (talk about cautious) or unearths anything emotionally new along the way.

This is not a mainstream film. Virtually all the dialogue is in Chinese (with English subtitles) and the extremely graphic sex scenes have earned it an NC-17 rating.

Neither of which have anything to do with the film's success. The story of an idealistic and naïve college girl (Tang Wei) who gets caught up in a plot to kill a power broker (Tony Leung) working with the Japanese during the occupation of China, the movie is a bit like "Casablanca" wrapped around "Last Tango in Paris," a delicate and engaging balance of opposing energies -- historical and personal, sexual and romantic, idealistic and pragmatic.

It's a marvelous film debut for Wei, who carries most of the story's weight. And it's a technical marvel from Lee. But style outweighs content at every turn.

Still, what style.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071012/ENT02/710120398/1032/ENT

[summertime]

Little desire for ‘Lust, Caution’

Like last year’s “The Good German,” Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution" is an atmosphere-drenched tale of World War II sex and espionage—and another awards-season misfire.

Based on a short story, this overlong movie opens in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1942, where four Chinese women play mahjong and gossip. Mrs. Mak exchanges glances with hostess Joan Chen’s husband, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), then excuses herself, goes to a café and makes a coded phone call. This sequence speeds by, at a time when we need to be eased into the plot and culture. Afterward, everything moves at a snail’s pace.

A flashback tells us the story actually begins in 1938, when university student Wang (Tang Wei) is recruited by an anti-Japanese dramatic group. After successfully mounting a political play, the theatrical organization plans to assassinate Mr. Yee, who runs the Secret Service for the Japanese. To get closer to him, Wong pretends to be a character named Mrs. Mak.

Wong catches Yee’s eye but he leaves Shanghai suddenly and three years pass without incident. When they’re reunited, Yee and Wong have an affair. Their NC-17 sex scenes, which are just short of hardcore, are explicit for a mainstream movie. If that’s all you’re interested in you can skip the first 90 minutes of the movie. If you don’t care about the sex scenes you can skip the whole thing.

“Lust, Caution” is a big disappointment compared to Lee’s “Brokeback Mountain,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and most of his other films. If you want to see a good Chinese period romance, check out Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood for Love.” And for World War II politics and espionage you still can’t beat “Casablanca.” TWO STARS—Steve Warren

http://www.sundaypaper.com/AboutUs/CurrentArticles/tabid/98/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/728/Default.aspx

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Lust, Caution (Focus Features, NC-17)

Written by Pete Timmermann

Friday, 12 October 2007

Clocking in at two hours and 37 minutes, Lust, Caution is just too long and is really, really boring. Really boring.

It seems like the majority of the press that Ang Lee's new film Lust, Caution has gotten so far is for its realistic (maybe real?) sex and resultant NC-17 rating. Over the course of his career, Lee has garnered press for being a genre-skipper of the highest order, going from costume drama (Sense & Sensibility) to martial arts epic (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) to Hollywood comic-book cash-in (Hulk) to gay cowboy movie (Brokeback Mountain). Doesn't this all sound a little familiar? The other great international genre skipper, England's Michael Winterbottom, pulled the porn trick with 9 Songs back in 2004, which wasn't much more than an interesting failure. I'm not sure I'd call Lust, Caution an interesting failure, though; it's really just a regular old failure.

Clocking in at two hours and 37 minutes, Lust, Caution is just too long and is really, really boring. Really boring. Also, aside from the career arc of Lee as compared to Winterbottom, Lust, Caution feels like a pale imitation of a similar foreign film from last year, Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (someone in marketing either on the side of Focus or Sony Pictures Classics must have realized this, as Black Book was released on DVD the same week that Lust, Caution opened in limited release). Both are highly sexualized stories of women who seduce corrupt leaders in the hopes of bringing them down from their position of power but wind up getting more involved with said leader than they were expecting in the process. In Lust, Caution, young theater student Wang Jiazhi (newcomer Tang Wei, who isn't half as charismatic as her Black Book equivalent, Carice van Houten) plays the part of seductress Wong Chia Chi in order to seduce Mr. Yee (Tong Leung of In the Mood for Love, and maybe my favorite actor from the Asian continent ever), a Japanese collaborator in China around WWII. After about 90 minutes of boring setup, the much-publicized sex finally starts, and as long as it is going on, the movie is admittedly less boring, if only marginally.

The real problem here is that the sex doesn't really add anything to the movie; it's really pretty much just distracting. Granted, there's a scene or two that advance the plot, but mostly it feels like Lee is trying to see how much he can get away with now that he is an Oscar-winning director. All that he is really getting away with is getting bigger stars (well, one bigger star, anyway) to engage in it, whereas Winterbottom, who was the real trailblazer in terms of recent, respected directors making a foray into blue movies, didn't have the sway to get anyone recognizable to fuck on camera. | Pete Timmermann


http://www.playbackstl.com/content/view/6714/160/

[summertime]

2 1/2 stars

Lust, Caution

Writer: Russ Fischer

Film Clips, Published online on 12 Oct 2007

Director: Ang Lee
Writers: James Schamus, Hui-Ling Wang, Eileen Chang (story)
Cinematographer: Rodrigo Prieto
Starring: Tony Leung, Wei Tang, Joan Chen
Studio/Run Time: Focus Features, 157 mins.

Most notable directors have a distinct style that will immediately peg their work; a way of moving the camera or focusing on a facial feature, the use of music or color. Ang Lee, even in his high-flying moments (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), often prefers the invisible style of old Hollywood. But with this WWII epic he has taken that mode to extremes. The editor's work is invisible, yes, but so too is almost every trace of emotion, as well as the sensations of danger and lust.

It's difficult to estimate why Lee allows the James Schamus/Hui-Ling Wang script to play so large. Perhaps his grand backdrop is distracting - the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and Shanghai during the 1940's. But the story, of a Chinese girl (Wei Tang) seducing a Japanese collaborator (Tony Leung) in order to assassinate him for the resistance, should be intimate. If the plot sounds familiar, you’re probably a Paul Verhoeven fan; last year, his Black Book presented a nearly identical narrative.

But where Black Book is a sort of grand guignol, this is a delicate chamber piece. Stately in pace and dry as porcelain, Lee dotes over the mahjongg games of wartime housewives and lets his camera roam wide to capture impeccably detailed recreations of streets and parlors, though he lingers longer on the well-maintained shopping avenues of society than the ravages of war.

Newcomer Wei Tang is simply glorious as Lee's heroine, able to be girlish and worldly, composed and shattered with equal fidelity. Watching her melt the immovable expressions of Tony Leung should be a delirious pleasure. But despite the much-vaunted NC17-worthy sexual content, during which Lee captures a range of human entanglement that is beyond most cinema, their courtship holds as much flavor as the dry bread we see lines of citizens queuing up for on Hong Kong streets. When, after one scene of rather rough sexuality, Wei Tang breaks into a small smile, the screen could positively shatter at the rare display of honest feeling.

Lee's interests have always leaned towards the feminine, specifically with respect to tales of repressed women. That might explain why he dallies so frequently with a trio of bored wives (including Joan Chen) and avoids engaging the passions of his nominal leads, not to mention the simmering desire and resentment between Wei Tang and her primary resistance contact. In doing so, Lee has bound Lust, Caution as tightly as any woman in his oeuvre, but absolutely nothing in this movie's 157-minute running time allows this work of art to truly break free.


http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/5472/review/film/lust_caution

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LUST, CAUTION ****

by Stina Chyn

(2007-10-15)

2007, Un-rated, 157 minutes, Focus Features, Haishang Films, Mr. Yee
Productions, River Road Entertainment


Tony Leung Chiu-Wai. There are eighty films and television series to his name, including collaborations with major directors of Chinese language cinema such as Wong Kar-Wai, Zhang Yimou, John Woo, and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. The period film “Lust, Caution” brings Leung together with another renowned Chinese artist, Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, in a partnership that not only makes sense but that is also ostensibly inevitable.

Based on a story by acclaimed contemporary Chinese writer Eileen Chang, “Lust, Caution” unfolds against a culturally and politically turbulent Shanghai and Hong Kong during the Second World War. The film opens in 1942 Shanghai and introduces key characters, a pivotal narrative sequence, and then rewinds to 1938 in the midst of the Japanese occupation of China. The film establishes the motives for the future actions of one group of characters and jumps to 1941, outlining the events that lead up to the film’s beginning.

Chronologically, “Lust, Caution” follows an acting troupe comprised of university students led by Kuang Yu-Min (Taiwanese popstar Wang Lee-Hom) struggling with the turmoil of their country’s political crisis. They soon realize that putting on patriotic plays is not enough to express fully their love for their country and determination to fight for freedom from the Japanese. Passionate and naïve, the students channel their acting abilities and assume false identities in a scheme to eliminate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), who is branded a traitor for cooperating with the Japanese. Wang JiaZhi (Tang Wei) is the focal point of the charade. Pretending to be a Mak Tai Tai (or Mrs. Mak), wife of Mr. Mak (Johnson Yuen) an import-exporter, Wang befriends Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) and gets close to Mr. Yee, dismantling his cold exterior.

Joan Chen, veteran actress of both Chinese cinema and Hollywood, performs adroitly as Mrs. Yee, a woman bound to complicity regarding the actions of her Japanese-sympathizing husband. Her opinion of national affairs and whether or not she shares Mr. Yee’s views are irrelevant. In fact, Lee’s film suggests that even Mr. Yee’s own motivations do not require illumination. The closest to an explanation the audience is going to receive appears in a scene near the film’s end where Mrs. Mak meets Mr. Yee in a restaurant in the Japanese district. He remarks that the Japanese (women working in the restaurant) sing like they are crying, like “wolves howling at their masters.” The rest of his words implies that he isn’t betraying his countrymen for the sake of personal enjoyment. Mr. Yee attends to his “business,” keeps appointments, provides for his wife, and always drops in to say hello when she and her friends are playing mahjong. A lot of mahjong is played throughout the film; all of it narratively important as it supports the idea that Mrs. Yee’s politics pertain to preservation of lifestyle not patriotism.

Tony Leung’s extraordinary ability to wear a face that betrays no emotion or subtext produces a superb portrayal of Mr. Yee. Leung’s costar, newcomer Tang Wei, matches his stoicism with a countenance of subtlety and versatility. This point-counter-point intensifies in the sequences that have qualified the film for an NC-17 rating. The climactic moments in “Lust, Caution” are amplified due to the manner in which Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak affect each other. The suffering and self-sacrifice that the story imposes on its characters are masterfully contoured in the hands of Ang Lee, a skillful director of nuance, eye-line matches, and body language.

The value of “the small things” extends to pop-cultural signifiers too. A particularly nice touch in “Lust, Caution” is the inclusion of clips and posters of Hollywood films featuring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant that played in China during World War II. An awareness of or priority for historical accuracy is not just about architecture, technology, and fashion. In this case, it’s also about creating a kind of atmosphere, and there is scarcely a better way to do so than by foregrounding or back-grounding the films of the given time period. Moreover, when a propaganda piece interrupts one of the screenings, “Lust, Caution” reveals an aspect of living in war times that conveys more in its implicitness than a tirade would in utter frankness.

Lee’s directing style urges the viewer to focus on and indulge in what the characters say and how they look at each other (in long, earnest gazes or in quick, stolen glances). Fortunately, the cinematography (courtesy of Rodrigo Prieto) complements this process. The lingering and tracking camera also enables the audience to absorb visual details and to appreciate the humor sprinkled here and there into the dialogue.

In subject matter, “Lust, Caution” recalls “The White Countess” (James Ivory, 2005) but is stylistically more of a film noir than a war (or anti-war) film. It is beautifully costumed and photographed, and isn’t simply a demonstration of excellent acting. Ang Lee’s directing is so engrossing that one abandons the impulse to rationalize and finds oneself completely swept up in the consciousness of the story.


http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=10336

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Opening Friday: Lust, Caution

Posted by Jim Ridley (10.17.07, 9:18 AM)

A review of the new Ang Lee erotic drama, starting this weekend at Green Hills. After the jump.

For Notorious, Hitchcock picked a truly perverse scenario—a spy pushes his lover into the bed of his target—then elided the ugly question of what happened every night when the lights went out. Ang Lee’s stately, slow-burning thriller, set almost contemporaneously during World War II in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, burrows stealthily into that creepy psychosexual dynamic, making explicit what Hitchcock coolly implied. The Ingrid Bergman figure is a stage actress (Tang Wei) enlisted in the resistance alongside dilettante student revolutionaries; her Claude Rains is a secret-police commander (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), with whom she’s ordered to snuggle under an assumed identity to set up his assassination.

In movies as seemingly disparate as The Wedding Banquet, Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain—even in The Hulk—Lee’s characters must act to keep their true selves hidden from society’s reprisals. Here, the acting continues even at the supposed moment of deepest intimacy, which gives the rough, ruthless NC-17 sex scenes a psychological intensity far beyond porn. The leads may be gorgeous, and Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography may look as ravishing as any golden-age Hollywood weepie. But as the movie explores the psychic damage of literally sleeping with the enemy, it builds toward an ending that dashes anyone’s illusion we are watching a romance. In Mandarin with English subtitles.


http://www.nashvillescene.com/blog/pitw/archives/00002004.shtml

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Lust, Caution (3 stars out of 5)

'Lust, Caution' is another Ang Lee tale of forbidden love

Roger Moore, Sentinel Movie CriticOctober 19, 2007


Movie details...

Cast: Tony Leung, Joan Chen, Wang Lee-Hom, Tang Wei.
Director: Ang Lee.
Runtime: 2 hours 37 minutes
Rating: NC-17 for some explicit sexuality
Genre: Drama, Romance, Thriller, War
On DVD: TBA

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a lustier, more cautious version of Paul Verhoven's Black Book.

It's another Ang Lee tale of forbidden love, or at least lust. But for his first film post-Brokeback Mountain, he has made a lovely, well-acted, overlong and NC-17-explicit version of every woman-in-the-Resistance movie.

Here's something Ken Burns left out of his latest PBS opus. Women in occupied countries always ended up prostituting themselves for The Resistance during The War. The good looking ones, did, anyway.

That's the lesson of any and all WWII films centered on women, it seems, and Lee stumbles into this velvet trap. The novelty here is the Chinese setting and the overt, raw and Kama sutra-centric sex scenes between the leads.

Set in 1938, '41 and '42, when the outcome of the war was still somewhat in doubt, Lust, Caution is about an idealistic, upper-class club of young Hong Kong drama students who resolve to save China and become assassins.

Who better to play-act their way close to traitors, those collaborating and profiting from their treasonous association with the Japanese occupiers, than actors?

They're naïve neo-communists hoping to kill a collaborator in their midst.

Kuang (Wang Leehom) is their leader, a dashing young stage director who has leapt from staging propaganda to recruiting his cast and crew for murder. Just how far out of their league these thespians are is made obvious in one brutal, clumsy and unnecessary rite-of-passage murder they force themselves to commit.

Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) is the impressionable girl who falls under his spell and signs on for more than she bargained for. Not only will she have to pretend to be a housewife, married to a classmate. She has to get cozy with the guy they want to kill.

Their quarry, the collaborator-in-chief, is the ever-cautious Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a poker-faced opportunist married to the mahjong-mad Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen, quite good). He moves easily among the Japanese and the Shanghai upper classes, who, at least in these stages of the war, seem oblivious to the sufferings in the rest of China. And Yee takes no chances always taking body-guards and drivers, never visiting dark places.

Lee shows us this unfolding lust-affair through Tang Wei's eyes, keeping the camera tight on her face, letting us see the "actress" underneath the performance. We see the light go out in those eyes as the amateurs she's surrounded by take it upon themselves to educate her, sexually, to play a married mistress.

The Caution of the title doesn't just apply to the wily Mr. Yee. The Resistance takes its sweet time waiting for a decent crack at this Enemy of the People.

The way these stories play out is that the "assignment" becomes more than that for the woman, and in this case, it's not exactly plausible. Yee is rough, domineering and despicable, if sexually capable. Lee and Leung don't give much away that suggests a sweet side or even motives for Yee's actions. Lee also doesn't come right out and say this is the sort of abuse Wong Chia Chi comes to crave.

The drama, in English and Chinese with English subtitles, unfolds as a serenely patient tale of chit-chat, furtive glances and mahjong, occasionally punctuated by peel-the-wallpaper sex. Even with the Chinese cast, Chinese setting and Chinese short story (by Eileen Chang), it is like no Chinese film you've ever seen, at least in that regard. The spy intrigues are given short shrift, even if they are screen cliches.

And aside from that one brutal student-murder scene, Lee seems to lose interest when he leaves the bedroom. Call it truth in advertising, but the only things he's interested in here are the overly enthusiastic "lust," and the maddeningly cautious "caution."




http://www.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment/movies/orl-db-moviereviews-searchresults,0,3279701,results.formprofile?Lib=turbine_cdb_lib%3Aresult_doc_id+result_doc_rank+document_id+cdb_num+cdb_01_txt+cdb_02_txt+cdb_03_txt+cdb_04_txt+cdb_05_txt+cdb_06_txt+cdb_07_txt+cdb_08_txt+cdb_09_txt+cdb_10_txt+cdb_11_txt+cdb_12_txt+cdb_13_txt+cdb_15_txt+cdb_14_txt+cdb_16_txt+cdb_17_txt+cdb_18_txt+cdb_19_txt+cdb_20_txt+cdb_21_txt+cdb_22_txt+cdb_23_txt+cdb_24_txt+cdb_25_txt+cdb_26_txt&PageSize=1&Page=1&MinCoarseRank=500&QueryType=CONCEPT&Query=&turbine_cdb_lib__cdb_01_txt=Lust,%20Caution&Find+it%21=Submit+Query

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Review: Style saps passion in lushly visualized 'Lust, Caution'
By Sean P. Means
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 10/18/2007 06:48:26 PM MDT


As he did with his radiant Western, "Brokeback Mountain," director Ang Lee is courting controversy with the sexual content of his new movie, "Lust, Caution."

Unfortunately, minus the sizzle of the NC-17-rated sex scenes, there's not much to maintain your attention in this plodding World War II spy thriller.

The movie begins in earnest in 1938, just after the Japanese invasion of China, and young Wong Chia Chi (played by newcomer Tang Wei) is a freshman at a Hong Kong university. She falls in with a theater group whose leader, Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom), writes politically pointed dramas to rev up his fellow students' patriotism.

But Kuang wants to effect real change, so he cooks up a plot to assassinate a high-level collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), and casts Wong in the role of infiltrator. Her job is to befriend Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) and use that position of trust to draw Mr. Yee into an affair. But a fatal turn of events ends the plot before it begins - until three years later in Shanghai, when Kuang and Wong see a chance to try again.

Lee and his "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" screenwriters Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus (adapting Eileen Chang's short story) reveal Wong's dangerous game of deception as a dueling set of power plays. With Mrs. Yee, it's intense games of mahjongg; with Mr. Yee, it's sessions of rough sex - and the mechanics of both reveal much about Mrs. Yee's shrewdness and Mr. Yee's need for control. Unfortunately, due to repetition, the latter soon become as interesting as the former.

Everything about the look of "Lust, Caution" is opulent, from the fluid cinematography of Rodrigo Prieto ("Babel," "Brokeback Mountain") to the lush costumes and set designs of Pan Lai ("Xiu Xiu"). The look is also static and unmoving, making it an unfortunately perfect fit for the passionless take on what should be a pulse-quickening drama.

Lust, Caution


WHERE: Broadway Centre Cinemas.
WHEN: Opens today.
RATING: NC-17 for some explicit sexuality.
RUNNING TIME: 157 minutes; in Mandarin with subtitles.
BOTTOM LINE: A restrained approach drains the passion from Ang Lee¹s World War II drama.

http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_7216359

[summertime]

Posted on Thu, Oct. 18, 2007

‘Lust, Caution’ | 3 stars

By ROBERT W. BUTLER

The Kansas City Star

Acting becomes a matter of life and death in Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution.”

Based on Eileen Chang’s novella, this NC-17-rated thriller (so classified because of a couple of explicit but not quite pornographic sex scenes) centers on Wang Jiazhi (Wei Tang), a mere teen when China is invaded by the Japanese.

Wang and her fellow theater students mount patriotic melodramas designed to rev up anti-Japanese sentiment. When the Japanese seize control of the country, the students up the ante. They decide to assassinate a Chinese collaborator, Yee (Tony Leung), whom the Japanese have put in charge of destroying the resistance. As the troupe’s best actress, Wang is assigned the role of a lifetime: to pose as a 20-something married woman, seduce the heavily guarded Yee and lure him into a situation where her colleagues can kill him.

Little by little Wang insinuates herself into Yee’s circle. Eventually Yee takes the bait. His first sexual encounter with Wang is so sadistically brutal that we expect the whole enterprise to fall apart right there. But Wang is made of sterner stuff … or maybe she’s taking her role as a spoiled rich wanton a little too seriously. In either case, what was intended to be a carefully orchestrated charade is beginning to look like a genuine love affair.

While it takes 40 minutes to read Eileen Chang’s source novella, the film (scripted by Hui-Ling Wang and longtime Lee collaborator James Schamus) clocks in at 2 hours 37 minutes.

Whether it needs to be that long is debatable … a tighter version probably would carry more dramatic punch.

But Lee’s unhurried style gives us plenty of time to revel not only in the authentic re-creation of World War II Shanghai but also in the lead characters.

Astonishingly, this is the 28-year-old Wei Tang’s first movie role. While never emoting, she leaves little doubt as to what is going on under her character’s surface, the conflicting currents of fear, determination and finally desire.

Leung is every bit as good. We start to warm up to Yee once he shows his vulnerability. This man who conducts torture sessions with suspects grows softer in the presence of the woman he loves, and while that doesn’t exactly make him a hero, it does make him human.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

‘LUST, CAUTION’ ***
Director: Ang Lee

Cast: Tony Leung, Wei Tang, Joan Chen

Rated: NC-17 for language, sexuality, nudity, violence. Mandarin with subtitles.

Running time: 2:37


http://www.kansascity.com/710/story/322782.html

[summertime]

Posted on Fri, Oct. 19, 2007

Lust, Caution (NC-17) **½ | This time it's the destination, not the journey

BY RENE RODRIGUEZ

In his previous film Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee expanded a short story into a feature-length film that had the historical sweep and emotional depth of a novel: It was a personal, intimate epic.

In his new film, Lust, Caution, Lee again takes a short story, this one by Eileen Chang, and expands it even further. This one is an epic, too, but only as far as its running time goes. Set in 1940s Japanese-occupied Shanghai, the movie centers on Wong Chi (Tang Wei), a beautiful, idealistic and virginal college student who falls in with a radical Chinese group. She is enlisted to worm her way into the confidence of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a superior officer of the secret police collaborating with the Japanese.

Wong carries out her mission by befriending Yee's wife (Joan Chen), then gradually seducing her cautious, distant target. This seduction, which eats up nearly an hour and a half of screen time (including a needlessly prolonged flashback filling us in on the details leading up to it), is beautifully photographed, exquisitely crafted and singularly unexciting. Essentially, we're left watching Tang and Leung exchanging uninteresting dialogue that feels like a build-up to the meat of the story. Call it coitus anticipatus.

When it finally arrives and the pair starts to consummate their painfully protracted courtship, Lust, Caution delivers a series of surprisingly frank (although not graphic) sex scenes that earn the film its NC-17 adults-only rating. Lee refused to trim down the sequences to secure a more commercial R-rating, and for good reason: The sexual relationship between the couple, which takes on sadomasochistic overtones, also deepens our understanding of the characters themselves, bringing their personalities (especially Yee's) into focus.

The sex also sends a charge into Lust, Caution that the first half of the movie lacks. Whereas all the burnished cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Babel, Amores perros) previously threatened to lull the viewer to sleep, the movie takes on the intended elegance and sleek menace that should have been present from the start. The last hour of Lust, Caution is definitely worth seeing: It's too bad that Lee, who has the curious habit of alternating good movies with bad (he made Ride with the Devil after The Ice Storm, and The Hulk after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), takes so long to get there. There's too much caution and not enough lust.

Cast: Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom, Anupam Kher

Director: Ang Lee

Screenwriters: Wang Hui-Ling, James Shamus. Based on a short story by Eileen Chang.

Producers: Bill Kong, Ang Lee, James Shamus

A Focus Features release. Vulgar language, violence, nudity, explicit sex, adult themes. 158 minutes. In Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English with English subtitles. In Miami-Dade: Regal South Beach; in Broward: Sunrise Gateway.


http://www.miamiherald.com/tropical_life/story/275533.html

[summertime]

October 19, 2007


Ang Lee's sumptuous period romance mixes graphic sex and gloomy storytelling.
by Wallace Baine

Sentinel film writer

The lasting influence of Ang Lee's ponderous espionage drama "Lust, Caution" will likely be as a prime reminder that sex and eroticism can indeed be two entirely different things, that you can lard on the former without ever capturing the latter.

Dark and dolorous, and running for what feels like a day and a half — actually, about 20 minutes shy of three hours — "Lust" has the good taste to bury its explicit sex scenes deep into its story; you don't drop in for the dirty parts and then leave with this one. But those sex scenes put a whammy on whatever momentum Lee is trying to establish in his tale of sexual double dealings in World War II era China under Japanese occupation. The scenes are both grim and unnecessary. They're crippled by arty aesthetics and yet you could cut them all out altogether with little effect on the rest of the film.

So, what's the point of the exquisitely lit coitus? At least, it gives the film a much-needed pulse. This story was a lot more kinky and interesting when it was Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book"

Of course, that is not to say that novice actress Tang Wei isn't impressive in her role as Wong Chia Chi, a theater student who gets drawn into the nationalist fervor of the day and ends up seducing a traitorous party functionary in order to assassinate him. This is the kind of acting performance — an actress playing an actress recruited to be a spy, that is to say an actress with her neck on the line — that gets Oscar attention.

The year is 1942 and the place is Shanghai under the occupation of the hated Japanese. Wong, under an assumed identity, has insinuated herself into the mah-jongg table of a group of wealthy aristocratic wives, one of whom is married to the enigmatic Mr. Yee. Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung plays the part of Yee, the first time he's played a villain, and brings to the role a certain cold-blooded cruelty.

Perhaps as a marker to the fact that the kind of "deep cover" operations in which Wong finds herself takes lots of time to establish trust, Lee dawdles, so that the film never finds a rhythm. After the opening, we lurch back into flashback and the story of a young Wong and her heady experiences as part of a college acting troupe fond of staging sentimental agitprop in defense of the homeland.

Her confederates hatch the plan to target the collaborator Yee and murder him, but they have more passion than competence. One particularly bloody scene exhibits how they allow their hot-headed passions to get the best of them.

Then comes the slow — make that, sloooooow — dance between Wong and Yee, punctuated by unapologetically full-frame scenes of sexual intercourse, during which Yee shows what kind of self-pitying monster he really is.

"Lust, Caution" smolders a lot but never really catches fire. Despite being handed two outstanding performances, Ang Lee errs on the side of caution instead of lust.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2007/October/19/style/stories/11style.htm

[summertime]

Movie Review | Lust, Caution

Juggled narrative of thriller confusing

Friday, October 19, 2007 3:38 AM

By Frank Gabrenya

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH


Lust, Caution

Directed by Ang Lee. Written by Wang Hui-ling and James Schamus, based on the story by Eileen Chang. Photographed by Rodrigo Prieto.



Mr. Yee - Tony Leung Chiu Wai

Wang Jiazhi - Tang Wei

Mrs. Yee - Joan Chen

Kuang Yu Min - Wang Leehom

** 1/2 (out of four)

Crouching lovers, hidden agendas.

MPAA rating: NC-17 (for graphic sexual content, nudity, violence)

Running time: 2:37; in Mandarin with subtitles

Now showing at the Drexel Gateway theater

Ang Lee never makes the same movie twice -- even remotely.

After Hulk and Brokeback Mountain, the Taiwanese-born, American-educated filmmaker returns with Lust, Caution, a World War II espionage thriller set in 1942 Shanghai and saturated with enough sexuality to warrant an NC-17 rating.

Lee's constant changes of interest and tone have made him one of the most intriguing and unpredictable filmmakers. But unless his story is small and specific, as it was in Brokeback, he has a habit of juggling his narrative elements enough to confuse even attentive viewers. He takes his time getting to the point.

Consider Lust, Caution, which opens with a scene of women playing mah-jongg in the home of a Chinese official, whose wife is the afternoon's chatty host. Her husband, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), is collaborating with the Japanese occupiers. He also seems, judging by sly signals when he passes through the room, to be involved in an affair with one of the guests, Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei).

Explanations are forthcoming in a flashback to 1938 Hong Kong, when Mrs. Mak is Wang, a student and aspiring actress who falls in with a drama group that develops into a resistance cell intent on assassinating a traitor. Their target is Mr. Yee, and the bait is Wang, who eventually strikes up an affair with Yee later in Shanghai.

Finally, Lee gets to the core of his drama. It's a variation on Notorious, with a willing woman ordered to get intimate with the enemy to bring him down -- in this case, to murder him. But, in a left turn away from Notorious, Wang becomes dangerously fond of her target despite, or maybe because of, the rough sex they practice.

Anyone familiar with Lee's work knows that the sex isn't gratuitous and probably not all that sexy, although it certainly is intense, prolonged and occasionally gymnastic. Lee and his screenwriters are exploring the riddles inherent in passionate desire, a tug-of-war between repulsion and compulsion that Wang can't understand while she experiences it.

That's a viable basis for concentrated drama, but Lee chooses to present it on an epic scale -- or at least at an epic length. Characters are introduced in a leisurely manner, discarded for long periods, then dropped back in abruptly. The film takes several detours, some comedic, that seem indulgent.

Tang, appearing in her first film, is an arresting presence who wrestles heroically with her character's conflicting impulses, often without much help from the script.

Keeping the characters, their motives and their choices straight through all the subtitles might leave half the audience as exhausted as the lovers after a rendezvous.

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2007/10/19/2_LUST_CAUTION.ART_ART_10-19-07_D5_5487GCE.html?sid=101

[summertime]

Lust, Caution - A Historical Experience

Reviews - Movies

Written by John Delia

Friday, 19 October 2007

Rated: NC-17

Starring: Tony Leung, Wei Tang, Joan Chen and Lee-Hom Wang

Directed By: Ang Lee

The plot of Lust, Caution, which covers a war era of Chinese history that most people would not generally know about, is reason enough to see this film. But—you get a bonus of superb acting, directing and amazing cinematography.

If you are a film or history buff, Lust, Caution is a must-see. However, if you are embarrassed by explicit sex, you may feel a bit uneasy during five minutes of the film.

The movie takes place during World War II China where the Japanese have occupied the main cities, including Shanghai and Hong Kong.

From the beginning, we are flashed back to 1938 where we find Wong Chia Chi (Tang) attending a Chinese university. She meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang) at a Drama society meeting with actor friends who are members of a resistance faction against the occupation of the Japanese.

Kuang, who heads up the radical group, devises a plan to assassinate Mr. Yee (Leung), a high ranking Japanese collaborator, and enlists Chai Chi as the spy to infiltrate his lifestyle and set him up for the kill.

After several years of gaining the trust of Mr. Yee, he gets transferred to Shanghai, Chai Chi feels her secret identity being pushed to the limit and has to make a dangerous move for the success of the mission.

Ang Lee’s wonderful direction shows best when he’s in his homeland element, and it's illustrated with this Chinese espionage thriller. Lee brings out the beauty and tension of his characters so well, they radiate from the screen.

I loved the performances of the major cast, especially that of Wei Tang as the shy but sultry Wong Chai Chi, the Chinese partisan who puts herself in harms way for the love of her country. Her ability to express her love, hate and anxiety with believable, applicable facial expressions under the direction of Lee is incredibly amazing.

To help you understand what was happening during the period the film takes place, I submit the following from historical record. The Second Sino (Chinese)-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 was the largest Asian war in the twentieth century.

Although the two countries had fought intermittently since 1931, full-scale war started in earnest in 1937, and only ended with the surrender of Japan at the end of World War II in 1945. The war was the result of a decades-long Japanese imperialist policy aiming to dominate China politically and militarily to secure its vast raw material reserves and other resources.

At the same time, the rising tide of Chinese nationalism and notions of self-determination made the war inevitable. From 1937 to 1941, China fought alone. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Second Sino-Japanese War merged into the greater conflict of World War II. – (Wikipedia)

FINAL ANALYSIS: A wonderfully directed, acted and filmed movie with historical value that’s a must-see for movie buffs, Independent film lovers, college students and mature adults that do not mind reading subtitles. Presented in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles. Please note that the film is rated NC17 for explicit sex.


http://acedmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=616