Lust, Caution

2007 "To kill the enemy, she would have to capture his heart... and break her own."
7.5| 2h38m| NC-17| en
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During World War II, a secret agent must seduce then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.

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Sexylocher Masterful Movie
HeadlinesExotic Boring
Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.
Winifred The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.
cinemajesty Film Review: "Lust, Caution" (2007)This Venice Film Festival in its 64th Edition anticipating Erotic Thriller directed by Ang Lee as follow-up to Academy Award Winning picture "Brokeback Mountain" for Best Director and further revealing an understatement version versus Paul Verhoeven's effect-driven "Basic Instict" (1992) delivers additional suspense and visualized tensions between the precisely prepared cast members led by Chinese movie star Tony Leung as Mr. Yee, a governmental influenced decision maker in an war-occupied China of year 1942 and actress Wei Tang, who together deliver an honest look on how NC-17 rated motion picture entertainment looks like for an U.S. domestic market with a three explicitly infused scenes of sexual intercourse between encounters from oral, anal to vaginal sex practices in an skillfully captured use of sound design and camera motions in fields of vertical and horizontal planes by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who serves his director well in stark lighting to strong separated color themes of blue, green and black to find the story about revolting students in pre-world-war-2 China 1938 infiltrate governmental agencies over years to come without shying away even from murder to self-prostitution in order to liberate the people of their country from a Japanese stranglehold, which so beautifully finds its cinematic visualization under Ang Lee's direction in the relationship between the high-sparking chemistry of the two leading cast members.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)
chaos-rampant The exercise here seems to be the layered portrait of a woman (an actress) unsure of herself. There is a lot of other stuff thrown in with Hong Kong and Shanghai in the grip of war, spying and politics, that is basically broadening the canvas with enough life to make the main image more lush and lifelike as opposed to a dry examination, bring clarity to it as something we unearth from a busy world. It is what Wong Kar Wai does in his films when stretching time, though not exactly the same.That image is actually an image of her, shown twice.That is where she's talking on the phone in the cafe, more sensually memorable when moments later she puts on perfume. The first time it happens we know close to nothing of her, except an implied affair with Mr. Lee, stolen from glances like in a Wong Kar Wai film. The second time near the end we know everything, again she talks on the phone and puts on perfume but now everything's changed, we know who both are and what is to be done.In between this mirrored image is the bulk of the film, all that fleshing out of the world and her as memory that shifts our position in the story by shifting what we know of the situation. It drags for me but there's a payoff in the end.Here's very clearly how it works in the film, it's clever stuff. If you have seen just the first part leading up to the phonecall, and the last part resuming from the phonecall until the end, in that part of the story after she has fallen in love, her actions make sense.In that part, Mr. Lee is just a sweet, taciturn man, not unlike the husband Tony Leung played in Mood for Love. Why'd she do it?But you have seen everything else, known him with more depth as an unpleasant man and can't unknow him, unless that is if you excuse the film as erotic. So you question her judgment of allowing herself to be seduced, as do her puzzled comrades in the firing squad line.She an actress, he a watcher.Her initially acting in the theater, later having to act in life, in the mahjong games with rich bored housewives, as the mistress. He watches, cautious at first but steadily drawn in. She is drawn by him watching, later forcing his way into her performance.It's not far from Wong Kar Wai's later films, which go back to Bertollucci's Last Tango to Vertigo (better yet, Nabokov's Lolita), where a man and woman, he is usually older and experienced, create between them a space of obsessive passion, where names and identity dissolve.Lee has done it halfway between Kar Wai and Bertolluci, shifting from coy glances to lots and lots of sex—but if you are fooled by it, you are fooled as she is, seduced because it's erotic.The point in all cases? That space ruled by nameless desire which may seem more pure and sometimes we covet in life, where we won't have to be who we are, is in fact more illusory, desire bents the shape of things into what is desired of them to be. As in a film noir, where desire (coded in the femme fatale) fools with the narrator's reality.On all this topics as well as main story, Lee inserts Hitchcock's film noir Suspicion which our heroine sees in the theater—a film where a young girl wonders whether her charming man may not be a murderer, and a studio tacked-on (meaning false) ending puts her mind at ease.Linked in all cases with memory as the untrustworthy desire to bend the life we choose to recall, it is a purely cinematic subject, where again there's the escape into something more pure than just life, but it's an illusory ecstacy, light poured on canvas. Enchanting for a while, but the lights have to come back on again.So why'd she do it? Because all that she knows about him is abstract when he touches her, the touch is real.So Lee has compromised, in this as in others of his films, it is half a great film in a rather ordinary package. You can kid yourself with the story, whereas not in 2046. But if it leads even one person into likeminded filmmakers who work outside producer constraints, it was all worth it.
Srinivas G Phani I was enthralled by Ang Lee's modern classic Brokeback Mountain. So I decided to check out Lust, Caution that got the golden lion at the Venice Film Festival. I am happy that this was the first Chinese film I saw as it is a true masterpiece.Wong Chia Chi is a shy, inexperienced University student who transforms into the wealthy, elegant Mrs. Mai to spy on the special agent Mr. Yee. Though their first attempt fails, she traps Mr. Yee the second time. But this time, their relation grows from violent, lustful to emotional, intense and passionate.Lust, love and betrayal are key-elements in the plot and Ang Lee juxtaposes them effectively. Even small, minute details are paid attention in the film. For instance, never again will you see (or play) Mahjong without recalling the opulent scene of the game in the beginning. The production design gives a magnificent look and, I assume, is historically accurate. Cinematography is excellent. The film is 160 minutes long and certain sequences are tiring and overwhelming to watch, especially the graphic sex scenes that display the elements of lust and passion. Nevertheless, the screenplay is captivating and the clandestine means of the group are amusing to watch.Tang Wei's performance belies that this was her very first film role. She is the lifeline of Lust, Caution. She is the naïve, shy girl of the university, the rebellious, patriotic spy and the silent, secluded, mysterious mistress of Mr. Yee. She breathes life into each of her dimensions and comes up with a mesmerizing performance that prompts you to watch the film over and over. Joan Chen is lovable as Mrs. Yee. Leehom Wang is perfect for the role. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai got an extremely tough role to which he has put commendable efforts.Lee's direction, what can I say? He is the master. I was speechless as the film ended. He is a director who surpasses expectations, although this was just his second film I saw. I was pleasantly surprised to see Indian actor Anupam Kher in the film as a jeweler. He was flawless as always.Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a must watch – favorably the NC-17 version. Also, the film has wonderful music. It is pure art.
dinaia I viewed this film in terms of contrasts and duality and yin and yang balance.It's a beautiful film, and a beautiful love story between two people separated by so many worldly obstacles and united by otherworldly passion. She was young, he was old(er); she was delicate and suave; he was rough and blunt; she was poor and free, he was wealthy and married; she wore a mask and hid a secret; he offered his true self and never bothered to hide anything about him or his job; she ultimately offered love beyond refute, he offered death. In a game of such contrasts and tensions, can anyone remain sane and able to define who they are? I took the famous erotic scenes as an unrestrained, uncensored, insanely deep and engulfing form of catharsis - a relief from all strains that they felt, unspoken and unconfessed. Even the physical entanglements in the sexual positions were to me highly suggestive of the forceful clash between the yin and the yang of their world, where the drop of black goes into the white half and the drop of white in the black one and boundaries can no longer be established. In their sexual intercourse, we see both hate and love, pain and pleasure, aggressiveness and tenderness, hell and paradise.I feel this is an emotionally draining film. To me it was never boring or slow paced, like some said. Maybe I found it so captivating because it always focused on the main character and Wei Tang worked her magic to perfection. The singing scene in the Japanese house, for instance..I have no idea what she was singing about, but it was breathtaking and heartbreaking.