'Lust, Caution'Is Sumptuous But Frosty, Repetitive Thriller Short on Thrills;
October 5, 2007; Page W1, WSJ
Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution," set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of China in World War II, grew -- and grew -- out of a short story by the late Eileen Chang. The story, about a young spy for the resistance and her intended victim, is remarkable for its complexity and density; it's almost freeze-dried, yet accessible to the imagination. In a few dozen pages Chang's narrative suggests the intricacies and ambiguities of sexual and political conquest, the shifting frontier between eroticism and love, and the paradox of theatrical performance, a process of becoming by way of pretending. The 157-minute film, in Mandarin with English subtitles, expands on all those themes, and adds explicit sex scenes that have earned an NC-17 rating. Sumptuously produced and beautifully visualized, this is a filmmaker's meditation on the culture that nurtured him. As a piece of entertainment, however, it's hoist by its own paradox -- an almost thrill-free thriller that seems seductive, yet stays resolutely remote.
[Wei Tang]
The heroine, Wong Chia-Chih (an impressive screen debut by Tang Wei), is a movie fan with a gift for acting that she discovered as a college student; since her story resonates with "Notorious" and "Suspicion," we're treated to fleeting Hitchcock clips. (The plot is also similar to Paul Verhoeven's recent, and shamelessly entertaining, "Black Book.") Pressed into service by young activists who loathe the puppet government installed by Japan, Wang pretends to be Mrs. Mak, the wife of a Hong Kong businessman, insinuates herself into the household of a brutal government official, Mr. Yee, and seduces him in order to set him up for assassination.
He's played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, the Hong Kong actor who was so hypnotically soulful in "In the Mood for Love." This time his character conceals the existence of a soul as best he can -- the caution of the title is just as important as the lust. What he soon reveals of himself is a sexual ferocity that befits a man who does the lethal bidding of a brutal government. But Mr. Yee is not only a brute, and Wong Chia-Chih is not only an apprentice pretender trying to pull off a layered role -- that of an ambitious, materialistic adulteress who falls victim to her own passion. Human interactions, the film says -- and by extension international relations -- are more tangled than we can know or imagine.
[Lust, Caution]
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Tang Wei play the devious romantic couple in Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution."
There's so much to ponder in the screen adaptation by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus that I kept wondering, while watching, why I found the action so uninvolving, and the rhythms so repetitive. The answer for me lies in the movie's relentlessly somber, self-serious tone. "Lust, Caution" is obviously not an occasion for frivolity; it's about urgent purposes, closed-off characters and fateful events. Still, some emotional variety would have been welcome, at least around the edges. Take that cell of revolutionary students, the college kids who draft Wong Chia-Chih for her dangerous mission. They are, in reality, foolish dabblers and screw-ups who might have become overtly comic characters in an early movie by Godard. Not here, though. Apart from a couple of amusing lines, they're deadly earnest and quite lifeless.
And the heroine's motivation is playful at first; at least that's what we're told, if not shown. Like many shy, introspective people, she discovers that acting turns her on to the point of personal liberation. Indeed, the performer's high is essential to the film's equation. Mr. Yee, too, is liberated by role-playing -- his own as well as hers. Yet there's rarely a trace of zest in what she does, and no relief from the impassive face he turns to the world, except in their sexual encounters, which are less erotic than athletic, acrobatic or even geometric in their graphic intensity. A freeze-dried story has been only partially defrosted.
October 5, 2007; Page W1, WSJ
Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution," set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation of China in World War II, grew -- and grew -- out of a short story by the late Eileen Chang. The story, about a young spy for the resistance and her intended victim, is remarkable for its complexity and density; it's almost freeze-dried, yet accessible to the imagination. In a few dozen pages Chang's narrative suggests the intricacies and ambiguities of sexual and political conquest, the shifting frontier between eroticism and love, and the paradox of theatrical performance, a process of becoming by way of pretending. The 157-minute film, in Mandarin with English subtitles, expands on all those themes, and adds explicit sex scenes that have earned an NC-17 rating. Sumptuously produced and beautifully visualized, this is a filmmaker's meditation on the culture that nurtured him. As a piece of entertainment, however, it's hoist by its own paradox -- an almost thrill-free thriller that seems seductive, yet stays resolutely remote.
[Wei Tang]
The heroine, Wong Chia-Chih (an impressive screen debut by Tang Wei), is a movie fan with a gift for acting that she discovered as a college student; since her story resonates with "Notorious" and "Suspicion," we're treated to fleeting Hitchcock clips. (The plot is also similar to Paul Verhoeven's recent, and shamelessly entertaining, "Black Book.") Pressed into service by young activists who loathe the puppet government installed by Japan, Wang pretends to be Mrs. Mak, the wife of a Hong Kong businessman, insinuates herself into the household of a brutal government official, Mr. Yee, and seduces him in order to set him up for assassination.
He's played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, the Hong Kong actor who was so hypnotically soulful in "In the Mood for Love." This time his character conceals the existence of a soul as best he can -- the caution of the title is just as important as the lust. What he soon reveals of himself is a sexual ferocity that befits a man who does the lethal bidding of a brutal government. But Mr. Yee is not only a brute, and Wong Chia-Chih is not only an apprentice pretender trying to pull off a layered role -- that of an ambitious, materialistic adulteress who falls victim to her own passion. Human interactions, the film says -- and by extension international relations -- are more tangled than we can know or imagine.
[Lust, Caution]
Tony Leung Chiu-Wai and Tang Wei play the devious romantic couple in Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution."
There's so much to ponder in the screen adaptation by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus that I kept wondering, while watching, why I found the action so uninvolving, and the rhythms so repetitive. The answer for me lies in the movie's relentlessly somber, self-serious tone. "Lust, Caution" is obviously not an occasion for frivolity; it's about urgent purposes, closed-off characters and fateful events. Still, some emotional variety would have been welcome, at least around the edges. Take that cell of revolutionary students, the college kids who draft Wong Chia-Chih for her dangerous mission. They are, in reality, foolish dabblers and screw-ups who might have become overtly comic characters in an early movie by Godard. Not here, though. Apart from a couple of amusing lines, they're deadly earnest and quite lifeless.
And the heroine's motivation is playful at first; at least that's what we're told, if not shown. Like many shy, introspective people, she discovers that acting turns her on to the point of personal liberation. Indeed, the performer's high is essential to the film's equation. Mr. Yee, too, is liberated by role-playing -- his own as well as hers. Yet there's rarely a trace of zest in what she does, and no relief from the impassive face he turns to the world, except in their sexual encounters, which are less erotic than athletic, acrobatic or even geometric in their graphic intensity. A freeze-dried story has been only partially defrosted.
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