Lust, Caution is a wartime story of espionage and intrigue, but to call it a thriller would be misleading. The constraints of modern moviegoers’ attention spans don’t concern director Ang Lee, as anyone who either loved or hated 2003’s Hulk can attest. Similarly, though the movie is rated a libidinous NC-17 (and deservedly so), neither does it flaunt its eroticism for cathartic release. No, instead, Lust, Caution is a lushly photographed, exacting, slightly overlong but still mostly involving drama about the clash of disparate forces and ethics — beauty and cruelty, desire and fidelity, personal awakening and patriotic duty. It’s also (ironically, in these tabloid times) a movie about a little girl lost, and how she finds identity, if not solace, in acting. meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom), who’s drummed up a drama society to shore up patriotism and feed the burgeoning student resistance movement. As the theater troupe’s new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling. Shedding her shyness, she finds liberation in the ability to move and inspire audiences.<BR><BR>Quickly, though, Kuang and his company’s <B>quaint, bourgeois rebellion</B> — a symbolically-infused production of Henrik Ibsen’s <EM>A Doll’s House</EM> — gives way to a much more radical plot: to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung, above left), regarded as a traitor. To do so, they slowly infiltrate his social circle. The scenario proceeds as scripted, until an unexpectedly fatal twist collapses the plot. Several years later, with still no end in sight for the occupation, Wong reunites with Kuang, now part of a more organized resistance. Returning to her role of in a revival of the plot to kill the paranoid Yee — who, as head of the collaborationist secret service, has become an even more key part of the puppet government — <B>Wong finishes her off seduction, striking up a torrid affair with the brutal Yee, who proves himself a sadistic lover</B>.<BR><BR>Gorgeously designed and lensed, <EM>Lust, Caution</EM> summons forth the intrigue and quiet scheming of behind-enemy-lines dramas like <A href=)
Charlotte Gray, and also (just a bit) the personal duplicity and plotting on display in something like Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German, which also (figuratively and literally) dealt in shades of occupied grey. If, as the saying goes, one ultimately becomes the things that they do, war has a way of forcing interesting choices upon even a civilian populace, and thus perverting individual will in not entirely explainable ways. Maybe the most interesting film that Lust, Caution tangentially reminded me of, though, is actually Mike Newell’s superlative Donnie Brasco. Like that movie, Lust, Caution is about the slippery slope of identity, and how one can lose oneself in the extreme pursuit of even-handedness or justice.
Lee’s film eventually plays the love card, but given that it’s a love born out of extreme cruelty and maltreatment, one can never be sure how sincere this change of heart is, versus the possibility of merely “Stockholm Syndrome” identification. Clearly, Lee believes that Wong’s journey is one of an awakening of sorts, but while Wei gives a performance of deftly modulated indecision, Lust, Caution never fully convinced me of love’s bloom, just that war alters everything, at home as well on far-flung battlefields. For the full review, from Reelz, click here. (Focus, NC-17, 158 minutes)