4/5
Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a magnificent film. Set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, the story follows a college girl thrust into espionage and deception as part of the resistance movement. She pretends to be Mak Tai Tai, wife of a wealthy importer/exporter, in order to get close to their enemy Mr. Yee. She soon becomes his mistress, and their graphic intercourse is the cause of this movie's NC-17 rating. Although explicit, it is not extraneous; its inclusion is integral to the story, the style, and the message.
This film is a technical marvel. Visually, it's a masterpiece. The lighting, camerawork, and set and costume design are all expertly achieved. Never has a movie looked this good since Road to Perdition. The fluid pacing and editing make this two and a half hour movie feel natural and comfortable, not overlong. The music was well-composed and well-chosen and the acting was fantastic. Newcomer Wei Tang does more than just stand her ground against screen veteran Tony Leung. This is all to say nothing of the exceptional direction by Ang Lee. This film presents a fuller exploration of the themes touched on in Brokeback Mountain: people's secret needs, hidden lives, and aberrant sexual desires deemed socially unacceptable. The sex scenes were necessary; subtle details flesh out the characters and overall thematics. By combining eroticism with suspense and violence, Lee both involves us and increases our pulse. The startling, unexpected murder midway through is on par with the one in Hitchcock's Torn Curtain. And the haunting final shot is the perfect way to end the film.
Still, I am unsure about several aspects of this movie. The choice to use
in media res was an interesting one. While it hooked the viewer, it simultaneously confused them. It starts with a four-player mahjong game, and we have no idea who the main characters are and therefore who to pay attention to (not to mention that we later find out that the main character is actually a spy and therefore someone else entirely). The fact that they all looked the same didn't help either. I saw the beginning of the film again immediately after finishing it and am quite sure it would have helped had we known this information beforehand. (Although I don't think a purely chronological timeline would have worked either.) Also, many scenes went on slightly too long or meandered purposelessly. And I was hugely shocked to see typos and inconsistencies in the subtitling. On such a major feature film? Please. Even so, I think this is a fantastic film and well worth watching if it interests you.
IMDb link:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0808357/
The worst part about boring movies is that even the short ones are way too long. Take, for example, Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together. Its 90-minute running time should have been shortened to somewhere around 0 minutes. That's what a good editor would have done, anyway. The plot follows a gay couple's love-hate relationship, and the movie successfully examines nothing new or interesting about homosexuality or relationships. The problem is that it thinks it does, and so it lingers on the tepid and banal. The egregious error that is the visual "style" is worthless and painful on the eyes, only serving to disrupt our attention from the story, characters, and message. I've seen good gay movies, good relationship movies, and good Wong Kar Wai movies. This is not any of them. It is instead a failure. Of everything.
