Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution

 

David Begelman

 

            Ang Lee’s most recent film Lust, Caution is a thriller about lives interwoven during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in World War II. It was adapted from Eileen Chang’s short story by scriptwriters Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus, and the dialogue is in Mandarin, with English subtitles, like the director’s masterpiece, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Mr. Lee is not always an accomplished master of cinema; witness his comic book extravaganza gone amok, The Hulk, and the overrated Brokeback Mountain. (Substitute two straight people for lovers who take to the mountains to consummate their extramarital fling, and you have the ordinary effort the film is without the gay cachet glorifying it as far more.) 

Lust, Caution concerns a group of resistance fighters who target a Chinese collaborator, Mr. Yee, played by the popular Asian star, Tony Leung. Yee is also the resident chief of the secret police. The activists undertake the nerve-wracking business of dispatching him. Some of them are also members of a student theater group, and while they take orders from above, it is clear none of them is an old hand at the killing game. Putting Mr. Yee away not only promises to be a daunting challenge, it taxes their talent for undercover theatrics. To accomplish the mission, the group enlists the aid of Wong Chia Chi, played by the strikingly beautiful Tang Wei in her film debut. A master plan is hatched for her to seduce Yee in order to finish him off when he is at his most vulnerable. Having framed the premise of the film, how does it fare on balance?

Lust, Caution is overly long, principally because it is front-loaded with bootless narrative. Consequently, its first section idles mercilessly. There is little in scenes of women gathering in Yee’s home other than the “laughter that tinkles among the tea cups,” and Mah Jong. If Ang Lee imagined that the annoyingly protracted cloche was build up to what eventually ensues, he leaves us clueless. Then the film takes off, hitting you right between the eyes.

Tee corners Wong Chia Chi in a secret rendezvous and proceeds to rape her. The stone-faced official’s viciousness is fueled by the tensions of being a collaborator and being a secret police torturer. But most of all, it gets unleashed because of the loss of control he experiences in allowing this particular woman to unsettle him like no other, bringing down his defenses. But what is the cautionary tale told in Lust, Caution?

The gymnastic sex scenes between the two principal characters undergo  transformations in both directions. Lust morphs into something else entirely.  It is difficult to determine when, in the ongoing scenario of steamy sexuality, Wong Chia Chi stops acting or when Yee becomes enamored of her in another, more significant way. There are scenes in which this attachment is highlighted: Wong Chia Chi sings to Yee at a Geisha house on an occasion he has scheduled for more than sexual purposes. (Japanese Geishas cater to male sensibility on many more levels than the purely erotic.) He also arranges to give her a six carat diamond ring as a token of commitment he is unable to suppress. And Wong Chia Chi cannot bring herself to follow through on the plan to kill her lover. At the eleventh hour, she signals him that his life is in danger, permitting him to escape the assassination attempt. Her tender mercies result in all conspirators, herself included, being rounded up and sent to a quarry to be executed. Mr. Yee morosely returns to his official duties, only to learn that he too has been under suspicion because of the relationship with his activist lover.

The film won the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and appears to have been better received by European than American critics. It received a NC-17 (no one under 17 admitted, even when accompanied by an adult) by The Motion Picture Association of America. This gatekeeper is ever ready to shield the youth of Athens from corruption—except for the insalubrious fare given a free pass when its theme is aggressive carnage and bloodletting, rather than sexuality.

There are stretches of the film that are wonderfully handled, both in terms of the acting, narrative lines, and Ang Lee’s skilled eye for the polished frame. Exquisite street scenes are an additional blessing, as they were in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the acting in this film is uniformly accomplished. The director dodged questions about whether the sex scenes were or were not simulated, a wariness perhaps supplying an answer to the question. Parts of Lust, Caution may be late in coming; but they are far from too little when they finally arrive.