Director – Ang Lee – 2007 – China, Taiwan, US – Cert. 18 – 158m
*****
A Chinese student joins an assassination plot against a high-up Japanese collaborator, for which she must sleep with him – originally published in Third Way, to coincide with 4th January 2008 UK cinema release.
Some will consider this erotic espionage thriller a no-go area, while others will want to see it for its director. Mandarin Chinese language outing Lust, Caution is based on a short story which highly regarded Chinese author Eileen Chang spent decades honing. Taiwanese-American director Ang Lee (award winner for both Brokeback Mountain, 2005, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000) claims he hasn’t so much adapted Chang’s tale as, in collaboration with his cast, re-enacted it. Given her story concerns the activity of a troupe of actors, perhaps this isn’t so surprising.
Shanghai 1942. Mrs Mak, waiting for a rendezvous in a café, is not who she appears. She recalls how in China 1938 she was shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) who as a university student got involved with a drama group to encourage patriotism under Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom). Acting before an enraptured audience, she realises she has found her métier. The radical Kuang subsequently leads his troupe in a plan to breach the inner circle of and assassinate high-up Japanese collaborator Mr Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), with each member playing an assigned role. As Mrs Mak, the hitherto innocent Wong is to seduce and sleep with him. It all goes horribly wrong.
Then, in Shanghai 1941, she again runs into Kuang, now a resistance member who has revitalised his anti-Yee plot. Drawn into an extreme S&M affair with Yee, it’s unclear whether Wong / Mak will ultimately be able to carry through her part in Yee’s betrayal.
Leung is extraordinary as the collaborator, a ruthless busy man with hidden concerns who opens up via a violent sexuality within the confines of the private hotel rooms where he meets Mrs Mak. Newcomer Tang, required to carry the whole, delivers one of the best (and bravest) female performances seen for quite some time – coping well in the process with the considerable demands of brief but extreme sex scenes. Veteran actress Joan Chen impresses in a bit part as Mrs Yee, a seemingly superficial socialite who, as it turns out, knows exactly what’s going on as far as her husband’s sexual adventuring is concerned.
The whole production is visually sumptuous, a contemporary film which perfectly captures the forties film noir period feel (right down to the stylish ladies’ raincoats) but relocates that genre to a different culture and period from the US post-war milieu with which it’s traditionally associated.
You couldn’t remove the sex scenes without gutting the film (it’s released uncut in the UK while the US chopped out some 9 minutes), yet the piece’s concern lies as much with issues of appearance and identity, actors and performance as, ultimately, intimacy and betrayal, love and death. If Ang Lee’s body of work is impressive, this latest offering represents another worthwhile addition to his canon. Some might wish to give it a wide berth, yet for those prepared to undertake its difficult journey, the rewards are legion.
Originally published in Third Way, to coincide with the film’s 4th January 2008 UK cinema release.
Trailer: