Lust, Caution (R-Rated Edition Widescreen)

Lust with Caution
Ang Lee breaks through again with a masterful adaptation of Eileen Chang's short story, Lust/Caution (like what he did with Annie Prolux's similarly brief story, Brokeback Mountain). While the hype seems to be mostly misplaced on the controversial acrobatics displayed by Tony Leung and Tang Wei in bed, Lee's storytelling leaves one breathless.

The love story unfolds against the backdrop of 1930's Japanese-invaded Shanghai where tyranny and suffering were synonymous. Nubile Wang Jia Zhi played by Tang Wei joins the resistance movement and gets herself drawn into the role of a spy to crumble the traitor, Mr Yee. In between the espionage and wild climatic trysts, both of them unknowingly embroil themselves in love and deceit, much deeper than they would have liked themselves to.

Tang Wei, as a newcomer to cinema, is impeccable. Her evolution from a wide-eyed country girl to a seductive temptress is enough to make the hardest of most men, in this case, the...

My New Favorite Movie Of All Time!
I saw this movie twice in the theater - very unusual for someone as critical of movies as I am. The first time I went by myself, and the second time I took my husband, who was not initially interested in the story line (espionage and all). He also liked it a lot (though he did not have as much of a personal connection as I did with the film). I was like in a zone for a few days after I saw the movie. It really shook me to the core in a sense. A very powerful movie in and of itself, it moves me particularly because I am orinigally from China and Eileen Chang was one of my faovrite writers when I was a teenager book worm. Having grown up surrounded by the communisit propaganda, I found it refreshing to watch a movie so artfully done to create a theme about love, sexuality and loyalty. It shows how innocent and ignorant the young revolutionaries could be (something that was obviously omitted from our history lessons). This is a movie about powerful human emotions, like all the other...

Great Cinema in spite of the Hype
I first heard about Lust, Caution, like many others, due to its NC-17 rating by the MPAA. As this rating has tended to be an oracle of box office failure in the past, most studios due whatever needed to avoid it in theatrical release. Undaunted, director Ang Lee creates a film whose story and essence require scenes depicting the intimacy and emotion of very graphic sexuality. However, the film is not pornography, not sex and genitals for the sake of sex and genitals, but is rather an attempt to tell a story with the inclusion of sex for emphasis and impact--something all to often done with violence and completely overlooked in film ratings.

The story takes place in 1930s Shanghai, a Chinese city under Japanese occupation. While this setting is necessary to the plot, it also immerses the audience in a time and place completely foreign to all but the oldest generations in China today. Rations, checkpoints, suppression of movement and goods are all elements weighing on the...

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