During World War II era, a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.During World War II era, a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.During World War II era, a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.
- Director
- Writers
- Stars
- Nominated for 2 BAFTA Awards
- 28 wins & 56 nominations total
- Mr. Yee
- (as Tony Chiu Wai Leung)
- Old Wu
- (as Tsung-Hua Tuo)
- Lai Shu Jin
- (as Chih-ying Chu)
- Liang Jun Sheng
- (as Ko Yu-Luen)
- Tsao
- (as Kar Lok Chin)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
Ang Lee is a genius. He's so good at capturing the emotions of his characters and actors. It's like he unfolds them so that everything on the inside is laid bare. From The Ice Storm to Brokeback Mountain to Lust, Caution he shows you real people and how they love and damage and betray each other, and more specifically how it feels. That's true talent. Anyone can point a camera. This is something else entirely.
The film itself is the best espionage film I've ever seen, but that's not all it is. It's very much like a noir and a war film and romance is probably the genre that is represented least. I've read a few reviews mentioning love and falling in it. There is some of that but I think maybe those people might want to give this one another go. They might have missed the point.
Who should see this? Adults. But I'm not saying that because of the sex scenes. I'm 33. I don't know if I would have completely grasped the emotional complexity of this film 10 years ago. I think you need to have been kicked around a bit by life to fully appreciate what's happening here. Anyone who likes old movies, sad movies, good movies. Bogart fans, noir fans, costume design fans should all enjoy it. I sincerely hope it gets some recognition around Oscar time. It's my favorite this year so far.
The costumes, sets, lighting and the drama of the story make LUST, CAUTION a simply elegant journey with characters that jump off the screen with fury, passion and of course, love tinged with revenge. The film is long, but you can't take your eyes away from the film for one moment as you might miss the brilliant dialog and performances. LUST, CAUTION, makes you think of what it is to be occupied by a power that treats its captured denizens in a world of anger and bitterness and creates a world of hatred and revenge as we see in this intelligent and important film. May LUST, CAUTION continue to gain an audience as it heads into the Kudo season.
Whatever misgivings there may be about it, this festival-winning film is a mesmerizing, rich experience. After 2 1/2 hours of being bombarded with a World War II love-and-hate story that's both exciting and dragging, chances are you will be still pinned to your seat, anxious to find out how it ends.
The "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain" director has turned his attention to war-threatened Hong Kong in 1938 and Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1942 (complete with a "safe Japanese zone"), seen through the eyes of a group of young Chinese resistance fighters.
Based on the late Chinese-American writer Eileen Chang's short story of the same name, the focus of "Se, jie" is the relationship between Mr. Yee, head of the ruthless Japanese-collaborator security forces (played by Tony Leung, leading man of some 80 films) and a young actress with the resistance, played by Wei Tang, in her very first film role.
They make a strange pair, both in the roles and as actors. Of the story - a cat-and-mouse game between the seductress/underground agent and the Japanese puppet/lord of life and death among the occupied - the less said the better in order to enjoy the movie. As actors, it's a veteran facing a new challenge and a novice who shows great skill and assurance.
Leung has always been a brooding, symphathetic, worn-but-handsome presence, especially in his collaborations with director Wong Kai War. Here, for the first time, he plays not just a heavy, an ugly character, but a scary, unhappy, murderous man, literally a dark figure, lurking in the shadows. It's a great performance, fully realizing both aspects of the character: the monster and the man.
Lee's love for the cinema classics is shown both in his use of excerpts from Hollywood greats (as the young actress frequents movie theaters) and in his creation of memorable images. This is a director with a painterly sensibility and the ability to transform objects into instantly memorable pictures. Never will you see mahjong again without recalling "Lust, Caution." Few of Lee's favorite classics can match the simple effectiveness of his final image here, of a sheet with slight depressions left by what rested on it shortly before: white on white, and yet meaningful and affecting.
Leung and Tang fairly monopolize the screen, but the rest of the large cast is outstanding, led by San Franciscan Joan Chang as Yee's wife, and the vivid individual characters in the resistance, including the American-born Chinese pop star Leehom Wang.
During the sex scenes I was holding my breath. Lee's slow burn toward these instant classic scenes was like foreplay leading to an explosive climax. Lee's themes of repression and double lives continue in LUST CAUTION. I look forward to savoring and arguing about this film for years to comes.
I think this is a very personal film for Ang Lee - betraying his private thoughts on his homeland, on sexuality, on truth, on love.
Here in Asia, one shared event in our history binds us all - the Japanese occupation during WWII and all the horrors that came with it.
To retell the anguish of that time through a torrid affair between a collaborator (traitor) and a spy is a brave commentary on how we Asians respond to traumas both personal and collective.
Mr Lee raises unearths some complex emotions towards identity and truth, as revealed in only the most intimate moments between illicit lovers in times of extreme duress.
That Lee chose to make such a film after his phenomenal success in Hollywood, and during this period of phenomenal progress for modern China, gives Lust Caution a heightened sense of relevance and urgency, a film that can potentially invite questions on what it deeply means to be Chinese, to be Asian.
Lee is a master, Tony Leung is divine, Tang Wei is a slow-burning revelation. I highly recommend this film to Asians and non-Asians alike.
Did you know
- TriviaDirector Ang Lee made Tony Leung Chiu-wai study the performances of Marlon Brando in Le Dernier Tango à Paris (1972), Humphrey Bogart in Le violent (1950) and Richard Burton in Equus (1977), to give him a sense of wounded masculinity, which Lee felt was right for the character of Mr. Yee.
- GoofsIn the café scene where Mak Tai Tai is calling her comrades the ringer heard through the phone both times is a modern ringer, which wasn't used until the 1970s/early 1980s.
- Quotes
Old Wu: Don't tell me what to do! You listen to me! Yee murdered my wife and both my children. But I could still eat with him at the same table! That's what an agent must be able to do! I'd like nothing better than to kill him with my own hands. But if letting him live another few days is valuable, then we must! Keep him hooked, and keep me informed. Don't do anything without my order. Remember... For an agent there is only one thing... Loyalty. To the party, to our leader, to our country. Understand?
Wong Chia Chi: Don't worry. I'll do whatever you say.
Old Wu: Good. Very good. All you need to do is keep him trapped. If you need anything...
Wong Chia Chi: What trap are you talking about? My body? What do you take him for? He knows better than you how to put on an act. He not only gets inside me... he worms his way into my heart like a snake. Deeper. All the way in. I take him in like a slave. I play my part faithfully... so I, too, can get to his heart. Every time... he hurts me until I bleed... and scream. Then he is satisfied. Then he feels alive. In the dark... only he knows it's all real.
Old Wu: That's enough.
Wong Chia Chi: That's why... That's why I can torture him until he can't stand it any longer... and still I go on until we collapse from exhaustion.
Old Wu: Enough!
Wong Chia Chi: And when he finally comes inside me, I think maybe this is it. Maybe this is when you'll rush in and shoot him in the back of the head... and his blood and brains will cover me!
Old Wu: Shut up!
- Alternate versionsAn R-Rated version was made for the home video market for sale in places that doesn't carry NC-17 films (e.g. supermarkets). The run-time of the R-rated version is only ~30 seconds less but features ~70 seconds of alternative footage to soften the rating.
- SoundtracksKlavierstücke Op. 118 No. 2 Intermezzo
Composed by Johannes Brahms
Performed by Alain Planès
(p) 2007 Decca Label Group
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Lujuria y traición
- Filming locations
- Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia(students on the tram: Jalan Chung On Siew)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $15,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $4,604,982
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $63,918
- Sep 30, 2007
- Gross worldwide
- $67,091,915
- Runtime
- 2h 37m(157 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1