This movie has generated a fair amount of buzz across two continents. It made waves in America because of its frank depiction of two people in a sexual relationship and it was a big deal in China because, well, because it’s not a day that ends in ‘Y’ unless China’s raising a red flag about something. But having now seen Lust, Caution I must say I’m confused as to what the ruckus was about in the first place. Actually, Lust, Caution has a lot in common with another World War II espionage thriller I reviewed earlier this year called Black Book. Just replace the Dutch with the Chinese and the Nazis with the Japanese.



The story follows a young woman in Shanghai named Wang Jiazhi (Wei Tang) who was left behind in China when her father went to England just prior to the Japanese invasion of mainland China in 1938. While a freshman in University, Wong becomes involved with a radical student movement that is using theatre to rouse the Chinese to support guerrillas fighting the good fight. But the students get bolder by having Wang pose as Mrs. Mak to get her in with the inner circle of Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen), wife of a top Japanese collaborator (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). Wang ends up playing the part too well as she draws Mr. Yee into an affair with her, confusing her feelings for the man as the resistance plots to kill him with her help.



Let’s begin with the “controversy” and how I think there is none. (I mean the American controversy; China’s problems are a whole other bale of hay.) Director Ang Lee has never been afraid of being adult about sex; look at The Ice Storm and need I point out Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution is no exception.



Frankly, I don’t know where the MPAA pulled the NC-17 rating from, there’s nothing more explicit in Lust, Caution than in, say, Basic Instinct. I kept waiting for something really objectionable, something that you can only find described with a cute euphemism in the “Urban Dictionary”, but there was nothing but the mature portrayal of a sexual relationship between two adults. Typical, hang a girl upside down and have her bleed out into a bath tube where a naked woman washes in her blood, that’s A-O-K with an R-rating. Take sex seriously and it’s too hot to handle. At this point I’ll say if you haven’t seen This Film Is Not Yet Rated - see it.



The movie itself though, I have to say, was kind of weak, intriguing but ultimately a bit of a let down. I am enjoying these new types of movies about WWII that focus on the small moves and the acts of a few brave civilians in the wake of total enemy control, but I think that Lust, Caution was just two close in proximity to Black Book for me to be able to judge them separately. Lee is an expert storyteller though: it’s paced right and not rushed at all, it’s lavishly photographed and finished off with a beautiful score. Oddly enough, the biggest weak spot was the acting, which I personally found a little jilted and stale.



Still, it’s an interesting story and an interesting movie. It offers some neat twists and turns and highlights a very human story that a lot of people may not be familiar with. The film doesn’t culminate in a big battle or essential victory, but it does tell a tale of the seeming futility of war, the way one cane loose themselves to the mission and how the road to Hell is, as always, paved with good intentions.