A richly detailed, deliberately paced espionage tale, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution tells an intimate-yet-detached story of seduction.
World War II, Hong Kong: college student Wang Jiazhi (Tang Wei) falls in with some patriotic classmates who agree to actively do something to help their country.
The plan: travel to Japan-occupied Shanghai and have Wang, posing as wealthy spouse Mrs. Mak, infiltrate the social circle of high-ranking Japanese official Mr. Yee (Tony Leung).
As Wang slowly seduces Yee – multiple attempts over a number of years – the director slowly draws us in to this story, as layers of emotion are revealed in these detached characters.
The cast is good, but the beautiful Tang Wei carries the film in her first screen role. Film has been largely criticized for its slow pacing and a rather muted tone (“not enough lust, too much caution”), but while the pacing of this deceptively simple tale initially put me off, I was appreciative of the subtle nature here, and how things never veered into melodrama.
Pic easily could have been shorter, though, and the occasional scene feels unnecessary – in particular, a lengthy flash-forward prologue.
Though the story is remarkably similar to last year’s excellent Black Book, the approach Lee takes couldn’t differ more than Verhoeven. Lee tackles wildly different subject matter in each film – I often had to remind myself that this is the same director that made The Hulk – and Lust, Caution is his own unique homage to Hitchcock, with one problem: it’s sorely missing The Master’s trademark suspense.
The plot directly recalls Ingmar Bergman’s infiltration of Nazis in Hitchcock’s Notorious; a drawn-out homicide also recalls Torn Curtain‘s famous scene in which Paul Newman struggles to kill a man.
And the climatic scene at a jewelry store, where all of the pent-up tension is finally released, works beautifully; this and some other key scenes work so well that I was able to forgive the overall pacing of the film.
Wonderful original music by Alexandre Desplat lends the film some much needed emotional backing, and even occasionally recalls Bernard Herrman’s classic Vertigo score.
Some intense sex scenes earned the film a ‘kiss-of-death’ NC-17 rating in the US, keeping audiences and awards groups away. Unfortunate.
Despite the minor problems I had with the movie, I feel Lee has surpassed Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon here and delivered his best to date here.
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