Lust, Caution

director: Ang Lee
year: 2007

During World War II, a young Chinese woman (Wei Tang) becomes involved with a student theatre troupe, who then become involved with the resistance, which then propels her into a most dangerous role: as the secret lover of a powerful, traitorous Chinese politician (Tony Leung) who's collaborating with the enemy Japanese.


Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a film with an identity crisis. Is it an exciting espionage thriller? Is it Last Tango in Hong Kong? By the end, it's a bit of both, and, as a result, something of a mess: either a convoluted meditation on love and power covered with generic conventions and a suspenseful narrative, or a pretentious spy movie. And there's also the paradox of its length: too long and too boring to fully entertain, yet it never holds its shots long enough, never gives the viewer enough time to absorb what is often beautiful cinematography. It also suffers from what should, by now, be considered one of Lee's storytelling obsessions: the drawn-out, romantic flashback. Chronology can be a good thing. Finally, because the acting from the two leads is as great as it is, it works to mask the thinness of their characters. They're neither interesting nor ever entirely clear. The film's climactic decision, for example, Lee conjures from thin air! It's emotional, and makes for good closing images, but, as a story, it's weak. Incidentally, the most "shocking" part of the film: a sole, brilliantly executed cut from an emotionally-charged scene rendered in horizontal lines to one of vertical, Venetian blinds.

Lust, Caution should pick a noun and drop the comma.