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The film kept me guessing about its direction, successfully. And can she do this without really falling in love with the evil spy chief. The film explores this. Tough question. The migrating-zit phenomenon suggests a need for software developers to write a program called "digital makeup" which smooths out the pixels of pimples, an electronic pimple cream. I kept sensing we weren't really in Shanghai, but on a Hollywood back-lot after a directory had just yelled "action", and the extras seemed fake somehow -- not real peddling taxi drivers.
Further, I watched this on a high definition TV and noticed how the tiny bumps and pimples on the characters faces kept moving around, sometimes within a scene, which suggested that the filming had happened on different days. High definition TV gets us MUCH closer to the faces of actors and we get a chance to see how they're not much different from ourselves after a good look in the mirror. The fetching Wei Tang spruced in Western attire with tilted cap crossing a street is, in itself, beautiful to watch, and this tight dark story of love and betrayal has intense coercive sex scenes bordering on sado-masochism. The deep lingering national resentment by Chinese over Japanese aggression before WW2 and afterwards continues to fester here, and this film won't help diffuse the tensions. To play her seductive role fully, it helps her avoid detection if she truly falls in love with him -- so to cause his entrapment and his death, she is pushed to fully play the part of a real lover. That is, is it possible to pretend like one is in "love" without really falling in "love". Overall, four stars.Thomas W.
The bait is sex; but the chief is cautious; hence the title. However, the street scenes seemed staged like it was a Hollywood set. And the part is ably played by Wei Tang.On a totally different level, I saw this film as propaganda, since depiction of the Japanese was consistently evil and depiction of the Chinese was consistently good, and I wonder which foreign policy purposes are served by this film. Surely movie-makers are hard at work here writing the code as I type.Wei Tang's task is to lure an evil Japanese spy chief to a place where he can be assassinated. Several scenes of forceful sex continue to paint him as the "bad guy" but assassination opportunities keep getting stymied. My cynicism suggests that some murky foreign policy agendas are at work here although I can't prove anything. Sulcerauthor of "Common Sense II: How to prevent the three types of terrorism" (Amazon/Kindle)free pdf if requested by email
According to the negative reviews, this is far too boring, too sexual, not sexual enough, implausible, and painfully too long. This is a movie about people and the pain of love. Languid, sensual, erotic, breathtaking, thought-provoking, gorgeous. Knowing Ang Lee, however, I can't see how one would expect that. If you've got the time and sensibility to devote, I highly recommend Lust, Caution. It's an art house picture that liberal artsy types feel compelled to favorably review or else risk losing the title to their Prius. The plot is secondary to the human insight and so is the much-ballyhooed sex.
This is the type of movie you commit time and thought to, and there are far too few of them anymore. Those are the adjectives that come to mind regarding Ang Lee's luxurious Lust, Caution. It is a delicious exploration of obsession, lust, love, anger, humiliation, duplicity, and duty. No doubt, if you went into this movie expecting a hot-blooded, breakneck-paced pot-boiler, you would be severely disappointed. Like so many of his movies, this movie is beautiful to behold, an emotional feast, and inevitably satisfying to my soul. It is not a movie that clobbers you over the head with explosions and in-your-face ADHD storytelling, but rather a relaxed study of human behavior.
She comes of age in turbulent times, she is abandoned by her father, and she finds meaning in a cause, she's prepared to give everything for it.and then she starts to feel love for the villain she is supposed to snare. What a movie this is. The only jarring thing about it is the hype about the sex. But Tang Wei's portrayal of a girl who passes through many stages in a short period of four years is mindblowing. BTW the fact that people have given it one star tells me something us humans.It should be disappointing to some people at least that the suggested tags for reviews are nc-17, erotic and porn. The DVD cover also seems to use the sex angle.
The transition points in the story are done very well.I'm no expert, just a bit of a movie buff, but for sure this is one of the great movies of all time for the flawless way in which it captures human dynamics. It's made an impact on me which will last a long time. That creates the tension between lust and caution. There's nothing wrong with that and I thought the way in which the sex scenes evolve is wonderful. The sex itself is awesome, but it's just that that's not the point.I knew about Tony Leung. Then there are the other layers like how well Shanghai seems to have been created, the score and the recreation of the period.
I think I did my good deed for the day by using "human drama" and "Chinese history".
That must be the moral of the story to this film. Evil triumphs, we get it. you say.
This morbid little piece of film sensuality really carved a niche deep in the dank corner of my bitter old heart. For the sake of intelligent argument, let us forsake the notion that any of this could have possibly played itself out in real life. I can think of no other edification other than the carnal kind to be had from it.
Unless your idea of excitement is watching some egomaniacle "Dick Cheney of the Orient" force his tiny Asian pekker into a sweet young dandy who is playing a dangerous game of covert ops, well. I must say that little in this world compares to endless moments of sheer tedium watching old betches play mahjong and twiddle away their days with bourgeoisie gossip of the Far East. That said, there was little else to rivet me to the screen during this "thriller." What.
The intelligensia gobble this shet up by the bucket full, but it really just leaves you spent and used like a back alley raping. For a minute there, I thought I had more to say.but looking back, I realize I've already said too much.
Her favoring her bond with Mr. Also there is a common Asian theme that romantic love is associated with obsession, pain, tragedy - like those Japanese music videos in which "love" is equated with tears. The story is disturbing and unsatisfying, the characters do not seem to explain themselves, and the acting is wooden. The plot thickens as she gradually falls in love with him.
It has elements of a spy thriller but really is not - it's about the the subtle struggle of the two protagonists as a mirror of national conflict and triumph, love intertwined with war. Thus her way of life is proved superior, even though she as an individual is lost. This is what we see - in about 1940 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. Yee is difficult to accept - is it just the gesture of a simple girl who let her emotions get the best of her.This film cannot be understood without appreciating, as the director said in interviews, that it is culturally "very Chinese." It's also in the Chinese language with subtitles so we are certainly missing clues. Finally, the classical Eastern ideal of womanhood - to accept a secondary role and sacrifice herself if necessary for her husband.
It is all heavy with symbology: the evil Yee as the occupier, the girl as China, even the start of their sex life as a rape which nevertheless does not stand in the way of the girl accepting Yee as her lover. 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 her comrades in the underground resistance. There is a major historical and cultural backstory here which must be appreciated. This echos the cry earlier in the movie, "China will not fall." The film has lovely photography of WWII Shanghai, with wonderful fashions and sophisticated upper class lifestyles.
This film is highly regarded because of the famous director, Ang Lee, but at the same time many viewers find it hard to understand, even boring, inscrutable.Following up on Brokeback Mountain, which was for Americans, Lee made this for his Chinese public. All these themes are played out in the film.Much has been made of the NC17 sex scenes but these are more tedious than erotic. The lovers say nothing and show no real excitement nor do they ever smile. When she chooses loyalty to Yee, it is a kind of spiritual triumph for her - she was true to her traditional cultural values. Rape was used explicitly as a tool of terror and conquest. For 100 years, Shanghai was a cosmopolitan, almost European city, which the producers reproduced meticulously. At a crucial moment, she must choose where to place her loyalty.
But the movie is directed at a Chinese audience who will grasp its layers and historical context, even the association of sex with violence and romantic love with tragedy in Chinese and Japanese culture. 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 against Chinese women. It is also significant that Eileen Chang - who wrote the short story behind the movie - was herself married to a man who collaborated with the Japanese. It could be an aphorism from the I Ching brought to life. Without that, it can seem just period eye candy with a depressing ending, and hard to understand.
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