Cold, Intense
On Saturday we caught a preview of the new Ang Lee film, Lust, Caution.
1. It’s gorgeous to behold. Shanghai in WWII is recreated in fabulous detail, like a killer Vogue spread.
2. The posters state that the previews show the uncut, R-18 version, which suggests that the movie will be cut/censored and the graphic sex scenes deleted, and therefore serious filmgoers/viewers curious about the sex scenes should run to the previews before the censors/distributors seeking a wider audience get their scissors on the integral version. A clever ploy, because there is no other version, no pale truncated R-13 movie; Ang Lee does not allow cuts. Lust, Caution will be shown whole, or it will not be shown at all. [Oops. Just heard that Ang Lee cut a few minutes for the versions to be screened in China and Malaysia.]
3. It’s gorgeous to behold. The cinematography is by Rodrigo Prieto.
4. Lust, Caution, also known as Tony Leung, Leehom Wang.
5. I could not forget Anthony Lane’s review in The New Yorker, where he points out that the grappling begins 95 minutes into the movie. So when the first, brutal sex takes place, we checked our watches. Lane is correct. 95 minutes, then five minutes after that, then ten minutes.
6. Many critics found the movie too slow, but we found the long build-up to be perfectly justified, no, necessary. Juan notes that several American critics, including Roger Ebert, were confused as to which scenes happened in Hong Kong, which scenes in Shanghai. Pay attention, people.
7. It’s gorgeous to behold. The leads look amazing. Tang Wei in her first screen role: a star. Leehom Wang: beautiful. Tony Leung: older, not particularly handsome, not the charmer of the Wong Kar Wai movies, but scorching.
8. Long discussion over whether the sex was simulated or real.
9. The plot reminds me of Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains. Interesting to compare Hollywood’s take on the female spy and Ang Lee’s, which is based on a story by Eileen Chang, who was married to a Japanese collaborator, and which was inspired by actual events. In Lust, Caution, the spy likes watching Cary Grant movies.
10. I found the movie both cold and intense, a combination only masters can achieve. Ang Lee’s trademark: the passion that kills.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
October 29th, 2007 at 13:14
Caught this 2 weeks ago here in the U.S. Loved the cloak-and-dagger elements and yes, the stunning cinematography. I thought the first part moved liked molasses, too labored for what it tried to establish. Tang Wei is such a luminous presence… naked or clothed.
October 29th, 2007 at 21:02
Rumor has it that even the film’s cut version did not get an approval rating from the Chinese censors, and their ploy is to delay and delay the showing date without the intention of ever releasing it for public viewing. I am in Shanghai and I am bummed out!!
October 29th, 2007 at 23:59
Lust, Caution is simply my type of film. Tony, though aging, is still one of Asia’s hottest actor.
On another angle, the movie seems like seeing the perspective of the traitor Bond girl. Of course, the film’s more than that. :)
October 30th, 2007 at 13:22
It was beautiful I agree. I watched it by myself because I was sure I would not be able to tear my eyes away from the screen. Tang Wei is the perfect woman torn and Tony Leung shows another side of him (after all, I only saw him in Infernal Affairs, hahahahah)
October 30th, 2007 at 13:25
Forgot to mention: I think Ang Lee hinted in some of his interviews/reviews that some of the sex scenes were real.
October 30th, 2007 at 14:59
Per the film’s local distributor, there won’t be an R-13 version. What’s being shown in special screenings right now will still be the same version that will be used when “Lust, Caution” officially opens here on Nov. 7.
October 6th, 2009 at 15:26
It’s a bit late, but I just saw this movie and I remembered that you wrote about it. Lust, Caution depresses me so much. Don’t get me wrong, Tony Leung is brilliant. He really makes you feel for a man who is given power in exchange for having to do horrible things. All morals, standards, restrictions and boundaries have fallen away for him. He has to grab on to anything he can to retain some shreds of humanity and feel good about himself. So he grabs onto Tang Wei (ha). Tang Wei is also brilliant. She has immense gravity in her role. I thought she was at her best without the heavy makeup and dressed hair. Seeing her as a country bumpkin or a student without pretensions makes what is done to Wong Chia Chi later more tragic. She is a monster like Yee, but in smaller frame – she is feigning love in order to have her lover murdered. I wish that her character had never walked from the stage to the balcony of the auditorium in Hong Kong. The explicit scenes are either brutal or wild and uncomfortable. There is either too much violence, too much passion or too much pathos. That is the point. They are meant to make the audience uncomfortable and sketch the portraits of these characters more clearly. I have seen this movie described as erotic; that is a misdescription. It is a tragedy and a picture of two people who are twisting and perverting their humanity who struggle to come to terms with their similar predicaments.
After I watched it, this movie haunted me. I guess that means it’s a good movie.
October 6th, 2009 at 15:29
Check that: not ‘good’ movie, great movie.