Lust, Caution 2007

Year:2007
Director:Ang Lee
Cast:Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Lee-Hom, Tou Chung-Wah, Chu Chih-Ying Chu, Kao Ying-Hsien, Ko Yue-Lin, Johnson Yuen, Chin Kar-Lok
Description:
Lust, Caution,
Ang Lee's adaptation of Eileen Chang's short story,
is probably most notorious for its NC-17-earning love
scenes, which feature copious nudity and gymnastic
positioning from Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and newcomer
Tang Wei. Those who put the film on their must-see
list simply to catch some skin won't be totally disappointed;
the actual amount of sex amounts to less than ten
minutes, but the scenes are quite explicit in all
their sweaty, bodies-intertwining glory. The scenes
also don't occur until the latter half of the film,
which clocks in at an astounding 137 minutes of sumptuous
period detail, intense mahjong sequences, and portentous
gazes, all of which take precedence to the sordid
stuff that baser audiences will likely tune in for.
But that doesn't mean it's all filler; on the contrary,
the running time of Lust, Caution is largely
justified, serving to add weight and depth to Lee's
potentially ponderous epic. The extreme length and
slow pace of the film can sometimes feel like a drag,
but ultimately, the long and sometimes frustrating
journey is well worth it.
Tang Wei turns in a very
brave debut performance as Wang Chia-Chih, a drama
student who travels a winding emotional road, flirting
with both the enemy and her own inner darkness. We
first meet her in 1942, engaging in a game of mahjong
with Mrs. Yee and friends, before she
excuses herself to take care of a mysterious errand.
She stops at a Shanghai cafe, and makes a phone call
to her co-conspirators, telling them that today's
the day they carry out their plan: to assassinate
Mrs. Yee's husband, Mr. Yee ,
the head of the Chinese Secret Police owned in full
by the Japanese occupational government. In the opening
moments, the film has our full attention, as Wang
is already waist-deep in espionage, duplicity, and
catty conversations over the mahjong table. She's
just called in the hit, and she's now nervous, applying
perfume anxiously, her eyes flitting from one person
to the next to determine if they're friend or foe.
Her raw nerves are expected and understandable.
But her nerves run much,
much deeper than that. Before we can see the outcome
of Chia-Chih's fateful phone call, the film flashes
back four years to late-thirties Hong Kong, introducing
us to the origin of the assassination plot and Wang
Chia-Chih's first steps along her treacherous road.
Chia-Chih has just been transplanted to Hong Kong
University, where she joins a drama troupe, performing
patriotic plays that stoke the pride of the Chinese
people. After her first performance as the troupe's
leading lady, Chia-Chih is flush with excitement over
her onstage success. But student director Kuang Yu-Min
has a new play for the group, one with
real consequences and more than just token applause.
Yu-Min's cousin Tsao is an attendant
to Mr. Yee, who's now residing in Hong Kong along
with his wife, and Yu-Min theorizes that the group
can utilize their talents - especially Wang Chia-Chih's
- to set up a honey trap. Chia-Chih will befriend
Mrs. Yee, insinuating herself into her inner circle,
before luring Mr. Yee into an extramarital tryst and,
if everything goes according to plan, setting up his
assassination. Presto, the student patriots have now
become resistance heroes.
Except they're just kids,
and ones without the savvy and experience to carry
out their mission. Eileen Chang's original short story
only covers the students' backstory in a few paragraphs,
but Ang Lee spends plenty of time with the fledging
espionage agents in Hong Kong, fleshing out the situations
and characters, and outlining the beginning of their
operation and its emotional pitfalls and multiple
missteps. Mr. Yee is much more cautious than the group
expects, keeping his schedule and security nearly
impenetrable, while the students have their own problems
staying focused and patient. Through all this, Chia-Chih
continues playing her role, while also making the
necesssary sacrifices. When Yee starts to show interest
in her, the group discusses what to do about Chia-Chih's
virginity, letting the only experienced member, Liang
, deflower her and teach her the basics.
The moment is key, because it starts Chia-Chih's quiet
disenchantment with her comrades, and her disappointment
in Yu-Min, who shares a mutual attraction with Chia-Chih,
but lacks the courage or passion to act. Ultimately,
the students' plan never reaches fruition, but they
all pay a price - most especially Chia-Chih. When
the operation resumes years later in Shanghai under
the official eye of the Resistance, Chia-Chih is eager
to return. But is it for the cause, or for Mr Yee's
steely gaze?
Ang Lee's adaptation of Lust,
Caution is much more romantic than Eileen Chang's
original work. Both the film and short story focus
on Wang Chia-Chih's turbulent emotions and conflicted
personal perspective, but the short story also possesses
moments where we see Mr. Yee's thoughts, presenting
a cynical, cold, and chilling view of love as a tool
to possess and even destroy another human being. Eileen
Chang's Mr. Yee is balding and in his fifties, and
he and Wang Chia-Chih's courtship is very much about
the unspoken realities of their tryst - that is, the
material ones - as it is about any notion of love.
Ang Lee's Lust, Cautions differs. First of
all, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is not in his fifties nor
is he balding, and the materialism between the two
seems to exist as an affirmation of their emotional
connection. Lee gives the characters the opportunity
to move from attraction to perhaps real affection.
Their growing lust builds for over ninety minutes
to the moment when they finally share their first
intimate moment, a bedroom encounter that opens up
the characters considerably. Before Mr. Yee and Wang
Chia-Chih sleep together, he's a distant individual
whose dapper appearance is as sinister as it is potentially
charming, with a mask hiding his presumed evil.
The sex scenes in Lust,
Caution change that about the characters, revealing
anger and passion that is understandable, given the
circumstances. Mr. Yee becomes a much more understood
and even sympathetic figure, though his cruelty and
essential evil are never truly in doubt. The film
clouds his actions for the Japanese, never letting
us see what his job requires him to do, but the violence
and coldness he displays appear more inwardly-focused,
revealing a possible self loathing. The film is never
truly clear on whether or not Mr. Yee's changes indicate
a growing trust or a possible self-abandon when in
Chia-Chih's embrace. Is Mr. Yee suspicious of Chia-Chih,
and yet allowing her access to end his life? Or is
his trust genuine, and does he lower his defense out
of affection? Ang Lee has been questioned about the
necessity of the film's extreme love scenes, but the
scenes' passion and anguish help the film considerably.
In a sense, they are the film's action scenes, bringing
conflicts to a head, while also revealing characters
at their most naked - both figuratively and literally.
The film essentially builds towards the love scenes,
and while the prudish may find them a bit too much,
they do propel the film's emotions towards their devastating
end.
As Mr. Yee, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai
brings his trademark smoldering charisma to the film,
sometimes appearing to underplay his role as the villain.
However, gone is the somewhat impish, self-conscious
charm that usually reveals him to be a lovable rogue,
replaced here with a cold intensity that speaks silent
volumes about a man who's done terrible, terrible
things. Leung is no stranger to tortured roles, but
he seems to sublimate those emotions so much more
in Lust, Caution, using his famously expressive
eyes to do far more than most actors can do with whole
pages of dialogue. Leung's final moments in the film
are especially effective, his eyes revealing a quiet
devastation that practically redeems the film's long,
languid build-up. Before that there are many more
scenes revealing his character, both incidentally
and purposefully, and it's questionable if every single
detail and moment needed to be told. However, in his
final moments onscreen, a payoff does exist.
Nearly as impressive as Leung
is newcomer Tang Wei, who gives Wang Chia-Chih complexity
and depth, appearing both in control and sometimes
desperately lost, all through action, expression,
and double-edged dialogue. The role of Chia-Chih is
one that could likely not have been performed by an
actress other than an ing閚ue, as the baggage associated
with the role would probably overshadow the performance
of any known Chinese actress. Tang gets to inhabit
this meaty role as Wang Chia-Chih and only Wang Chia-Chih,
bringing no preconceived notions or persona to the
screen other than that of the character she plays.
Physically, she suits Eileen Chang's 1940s Shanghai
very well, and is convincing when glamorized or de-glamorized
through makeup and her period wardrobe. This is an
impressive debut, considering the scale of the production
and the demands of the role. It'll be curious to see
where Tang Wei goes from here.
The other actors suffer by
comparison to the leading pair, though the blame could
fall on screentime and development as much as on actual
performance. Joan Chen is barely used as Mrs. Yee,
and Leehom Wang doesn't fully register as Yu-Min,
a character who should be far more charismatic than
the schoolboy he appears to be. The rest of the cast
is fine, and Ang Lee displays his usual talent with
wringing effective, low-key performances from his
cast of performers, giving them personality without
requiring that they take over the spotlight. Lee's
power as a director is undeniably connected to his
ability to establish and explore complex, extreme,
and yet recognizable emotions, creating characters
that don't feel like creations as much as human beings
themselves. The film spends inordinate amounts of
time with Wang Chia-Chih and Mr. Yee, but the time
is well-spent, using interaction and dialogue to build
a relationship and world that can seduce and mesmerize
the viewer.
But the time spent may also
be a bit too much for some viewers. At nearly two
hours and forty minutes, and with few active events,
Lust, Caution proves to be a long haul. While
the film doesn't waste time like, say, the numbingly
long Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,
one wonders if economy couldn't have been employed
at some point. The film doesn't feature much in the
way of repetition, but it moves very languidly, cutting
very few corners and reveling in beautifully arranged
settings, complete conversations and slow-burn, simmering
suspense. Only once or twice does the tension get
physically immediate; usually it's internal, and given
the frequent elliptical and unrevealing dialogue , it's possible that some audience
members will be checking their watch more than once
or twice. Lust, Caution is a tough sell for
mass audiences, and is most assuredly not for everyone
because it uses an extravagant running time to tell
as story that could justifiably been told in much
less time.
Does that make Ang Lee's
uncompromising vision a mistake? I don't believe so,
as a filmmaker should be free to tell the story that
he or she feels compelled to tell, and not be hamstrung
by notions of varying audience taste or tolerance.
Lee has clearly put a certain audience aside in order
to tell the story that he wanted to, and it's not
a crackling spy thriller or a suspenseful espionage
epic, but a detailed drama about flawed characters
and emotions hidden, discovered, and ultimately destroyed,
in large part by the situations and historical events
surrounding them. Lee has taken a 50-page short story
and turned it into a full-blown 600-page novel, and
despite that difference, few stretch marks really
show. Lust, Caution will test the patience
of some audiences, but it also will reward many with
its exacting vision, finely-tuned performances and
unspoken, sublime detail. After Brokeback Mountain,
Ang Lee was probably free to do whatever he wished,
and Lust, Caution is the result. This is carte
blanche given to a filmmaker, and Ang Lee doesn't
misuse or abuse it. He simply deserves it.