Lust, Caution (Widescreen Edition)
by Ang Lee
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DVD details
Actor: Chung Hua Tou, Joan Chen, Lee-Hom Wang, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Wei TangDirector: Ang Lee
Brand: TANG,WEI
Producer: Ang Lee
Producer: Dai Song
Producer: Darren Shaw
Producer: David Lee
Writer: Eileen Chang
Writer: Hui-Ling Wang
Writer: James Schamus
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Mandarin Chinese (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 159 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-19
Audience Rating: NC-17
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Lust, Caution (Widescreen Edition)
DVD Review: Hard to grasp for non-Chinese
Summary: 3 Stars
This film seems to receive high regard because of the famous director, Ang Lee, but at the same time many viewers report it hard to understand, even boring, puzzling. What's going on?
Following up on Brokeback Mountain, which was for Americans, Lee made the one for his Chinese public. This is what we see - a young girl is recruited as a spy to seduce and bring down the head of the Chinese secret police collaborating with the Japanese occupiers. Alas she gradually falls in love with him and at the crucial moment, can't bear to see him killed. Without hesitation, he kills her instead. The story seems disturbing and unsatisfying, the characters do not seem to explain themselves, and the acting is wooden. So why would this lovely young girl fall in love with her target, who is a traitor to her country, whose sexual relationship with her starts with a brutal rape, and who is daily engaged in torturing and executing her comrades in the underground resistance? At the end, her saving Mr. Yee at the cost of betraying her friends and condemning them and herself is difficult to accept - is it just the gesture of a stupid girl who let her emotions get the best of her?
This film cannot be understood without appreciating, as the director himself said in an interview, that it is culturally "very Chinese." (It's also in the Chinese language with subtitles so Westerners are certainly missing many subtle clues.) There are depths of historical and cultural backstory here which every Chinese knows but most Westerners will not. First is the traumatic occupation of China by Japan from 1938 to 1945, an occupation marked by horrific atrocities against civilians including systematic sexual violence towards Chinese women. In fact rape was the very definition of conquest. It is also important that Eileen Chang - who wrote the short story behind the movie - was herself married to a man who collaborated with the Japanese, which was not uncommon. Also there is an Asian theme that romantic love is associated with obsession and pain. (Have you ever seen one of those Japanese music videos in which "love" is invariably depicted as a reason for tears?) Finally, the classical Asian ideal of womanhood is to accept a secondary role and sacrifice herself if necessary for her husband, who is lord and master. All these themes are played out in the film.
Much has been made of the NC17 sex scenes but these are a bit boring and not at all erotic. The lovers say nothing and show no real excitement nor do they ever smile. It all has quite a bit of symbology going on: the evil Yee as the occupier, the girl as China, even the start of their sex life as a rape which does not stand in the way of the girl accepting Yee as her lover.
One of the intriguing moments is after the girl and her cell of resistance fighters are captured and Yee's second in command reveals that the security police had known about them all along. When Yee asks his underling why he was not told, the answer is that Yee himself was suspected by his colleagues of cooperating with her because of their relationship. If this tension had played a bigger role in the movie, there might have been more drama. But it's not really a spy thriller - it's about the the subtle relationship of the two protagonists. When at the end she refuses to allow Yee to be killed and sacrifices herself and her friends instead, it is a kind of spiritual triumph for her - she was true to her traditional cultural values. Thus her way of life is proved superior, even though she dies and Yee lives. This echos the cry earlier in the movie, "China will not fall!"
Most of this will go right over the heads of you and me. For us, the best thing about the movie is the lovely photography of WWII Shanghai, the fashions and sophisticated upper class lifestyles depicted. For 100 years, Shanghai was a cosmopolitan, almost European city, which the producers reproduced meticulously. But the movie is made for a Chinese audience who will grasp its layers and historical context, even the association of sex with violence and romantic love with pain in Chinese and Japanese culture.
Without all that baggage, the movie is just period eye candy with a depressing ending. So three stars.
DVD Review: AN EXCELLENT MOVIE
Summary: 5 Stars
THIS MOVIE WAS REALLY GOOD, IT HAD SUBTITLES, HOWEVER, AFTER WATCHING 10-15 MINUTES, YOU FORGET THE REST OF THE MOVIE ABOUT THESE. ACTING SUPERB, STORY LINE HOOKS YOU AND KEEPS YOU TO THE END. VERY TRUE TO LIFE. GET THIS ONE!!DVD Review: China's War in the Thirtys
Summary: 5 Stars
An excellent movie. 5 stars. Well acted, directed, cast, filmed and with great locations thrown in. If not for the R rating it would Oscar material. About the Japanese invasion period. Students at a college form a cell and plot against the collaborators who help the occupation. Some violence and nudity but fine acting throughout. Chinese with subtitles. Best I've watched in a long time.DVD Review: Very good
Summary: 5 Stars
Like a lot of Chinese movies the ending isn't like we in the west would like to see but its real life. Not always easy to swallow but more people should see how life can be and end. I recommend this to anyone who is open to sexual situations. It doesn't show much but it is a gripping movie with some violence to boot. Nothing hear is graphic its more like a true story turned into a movie. The acting is top notch you would think it was done in Hollywood. The movies now coming out of HongKong and China are very good. DVD Review: a master piece.......immaculate
Summary: 5 Stars
me sister, me girl friend, even me aunts still cries when the heroine sacrifices herself for love.
mr ang lee must have done a really really fine job. ^_-
Description of Lust, Caution (Widescreen Edition)
Provocative, thrilling and passionate, Lust, Caution is the daring new film from acclaimed Academy Award?-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Set against the backdrop of a transforming country, a young woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless and secretive intelligence agent. As she immerses herself in her role as a cosmopolitan seductress, she becomes entangled in a dangerous game that will ultimately determine her fate. Erotic, breathtaking and suspenseful, this award-winning film is being called "exquisitely beautiful" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) and "lushly sensual" (Leah Rozen, People).Lust, Caution, Ang Lee's follow up to Brokeback Mountain, for which he won the Academy Award? for Best Director, continues his exploration of people with a passion for each other trapped in a world where their passion could be life-threatening, but in a very different context this time. Set in China during the Japanese occupation of early World War II, the underlying plot concerns the story of young Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), an actress and member of a small group of student resistors planning to infiltrate the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a high-ranking collaborationist government official, in order to kill him for his role in the torture and executions of Chinese resistance fighters. Chi ingratiates herself with Yee's wife, the sophisticated and cultured Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) under the guise of being the wife of a wealthy but unseen tycoon. Flashbacks tell the tale of how Chi came to be involved with the resistors: her acting ability is her most valuable asset, and her assignment is to act the role of Mr. Yee's lover, right down to the sex. The story of their love and the painful intimacy it involves for both of them is told through their sexual relationship, which starts out violently, drifts into S&M, and shifts with their feelings, moving from pain and fear to some sort of desperate connection. This is lust with a capital L; the film's sex scenes have become famous for their frankness and acrobatic portrayals (they took 12 days to film), but amazingly enough, it's never prurient. The nature of their sexual relationship, and not the sex itself, is the point. Chi falls in love with the man she's supposed to kill, but there is no stopping the mission and she knows it. The danger of it all collapsing for them both is ever present, and that's the Caution. The cinematography and direction in Lust, Caution is masterful, and every scene is beautiful. The film does drift into a languid pace, and at times one wonders why Lee would feel the need to draw it out at the expense of delaying the crucial climactic scenes. Still, it's a wonderful piece of storytelling that should only help solidify Ang Lee's place in cinematic history as a master of films that express the difficulty of being essentially human in an inhumane world. --Daniel Vancini
Stills from Lust, Caution (click for larger image)
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