'Lust, Caution' (2007)
Ang Lee is one of the world’s most remarkable living directors, a filmmaker who moves easily between worlds. The Taiwan reared director began with intimate Chinese-language films such as Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) that reflected on his experience. Hollywood welcomed him—a rising ‘90s indie star—but never seduced him. Well, maybe once, Hulk (2003), a superhero movie Lee might have taken on as a technical challenge.
Lee’s English language debut, the Jane Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility (1995), was a continent and a century distant from his Taiwanese features. And he didn’t stop there, in a comfortable niche for the “Masterpiece Theatre” crowd but continued to roam through space and time. The Ice Storm (1997) investigates upper class American life circa 1970; Ride with the Devil (1999) is a Civil War movie from a Southern perspective; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) is a Chinese martial arts fantasy. And then, following Hulk, the thematically groundbreaking Brokeback Mountain (2005).
The new Kino Lorber Blu-ray release of Lust, Caution (2007) shifts focus again as a thriller set in 1930s-‘40s China under Japanese occupation. As much as possible, it was filmed in real places that recall the period texture of Hong Kong and Shanghai. The cinematography is rich and suffused with deep color. And the editing allows the two and a half hour film to roll unhurriedly across the years, even as the urgency mounts.
The protagonist, Wong (Tang Wei) is a young college student and actress whose life is thrown into upheaval by her country’s political situation. She’d rather perform Ibsen but is cast by fiery young director Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom) into a patriotic melodrama about expelling the hated Japanese invaders. Kuang decides that representing reality isn’t enough—they must make reality by assassinating a prominent Chinese official collaborating with Japan. Their idealistic plot is commandeered by a well-drilled resistance organization and Wong is the lynchpin of their scheme.
The official they seek to kill, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), is known as a lady’s man. To get at him, Wong must befriend his wife, insinuate herself into their household and lure the collaborator into a death trap. Wong’s conflicting emotions of distress and determination are registered in her face. Ang Lee is a superb director of actors and much of the film works beyond words in a dialogue of gestures. The initial flirtation scene between Wong and Yee is a beautifully-realized sequence of silences and eye contact.
Yee turns out to be a man of terrible urges—the sex scene between them is brutal and disturbing as power and dominance play out in the bedroom as well as the prison where Yee’s suspects are tortured. And yet the sad-eyed man is an enigmatic villain. On some level he cares about Wong, wants to please and win her affection (not unlike fascist dictators and their subjects). He may have been an idealist once and he’s resigned to his fate. He knows his side is losing.
Lust, Caution isn’t an easy story of heroism and betrayal, but a sophisticated examination of human psychology under duress in a pinpoint period setting worthy of Merchant Ivory. It’s in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles.The director’s 2007 film has just been released on Blu-ray
