Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Tang Wei in Focus Features' Lust, Caution

Hopefully all this caterwauling should sound like a recommendation, because for all the picture’s flaws and unevenness this is definitely a movie I hope everyone out there sees. All the discussion about its NC-17 rating and hard-core sex scenes (including a sort-of rape sequence that’s almost impossible to watch) aside, there is a lot to think about here and even more to process, and even if Lee can’t quite bring it all together in a way that’s completely satisfying this is still one drama worth taking the time to ponder.

In Shanghai, 1942, World War II is having its effect on China turning neighbor against neighbor as the nation of Japan slowly begins to take over. It is here that Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei), a sophisticated woman of means, has begun a torrid affair with top Japanese collaborator Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). First gaining his trust through an intimately constructed friendship with his bourgeois wife (Joan Chen), now she has wormed her way into the center of the man’s heart, the continually suspicious official beginning to lower his defenses every time he's alone with her.

All of which is according to plan, because this young lady is not Mrs. Mak but instead wide-eyed Wong Chia Chi, convinced to go undercover by a fellow university student (Wang Leehom) in order to protect their country. But this constant play acting is starting to take its toll, and as much as she loathes the man Mr. Yee has become she has become just as sexually intertwined with his emotional well-being as he has become with hers. Their relationship is one filled with passion and lust, and while the ultimate goal is the man’s assassination getting their might require far more then Wong Chia Chi is willing to offer.

There is a lot I want to say here but unfortunately for once I must admit to not really being sure how. Lust, Caution drove me crazy as it drifted into directions and tangents I’m not altogether sure I understood, some of the cultural realities of the tale lost on me amidst the closeted emotions a mannered silences. Yet it was also deeply fascinating, the visceral complexities of the situation as it weighed mercilessly down upon our frazzled yet driven heroine pretty much breaking my heart.

A cynic would say that Lee’s opus is really nothing more than a variation on themes already presented by Paul Verhoeven in his recent WWII epic Black Book, and while the similarities are obvious (both concern women going undercover to help assassinate traitors using sex as their ultimate weapons) the path chosen by the directors couldn’t be more different. Lee’s film is far statelier, far more reserved and much more delicately pulled to the chest while Verhoeven’s is an in-your-face pulp fiction with so many bullets and fisticuffs it reeks of a dime store novel.

And yet, I can’t help but admit I enjoyed the breathtaking verisimilitude of the latter far more than I did the exacting moodiness of the former. There is just something about this one that couldn’t help but keep me at arm’s length, and every time I thought I was going to get pulled in close to experience things through the eyes of the characters Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus’s script would instead push me back away and make me stand once again in the corner like a disaffected observer scratching my head as to what exactly it was they were expecting me take away from this.

But try as I might I cannot begin to get this film out of my head. From the sight of immaculately manicured nails glistening against the pearly façade of a Mahjong board to the horrific killing of a low-level collaborator trying to put the screws to the students before their plan can go into action, there are sights and sounds I can’t help but remain fascinated with. Lee keeps things moving at an almost hypnotic tempo, and even at close to three hours the film kept me so mesmerized I didn’t even notice so much time was actually passing.

It is newcomer Wei who is the real story here, however. What she does is downright extraordinary. Lee asks the young actress to immerse herself completely inside the complexities of the part while at the same time engaging in emotionally shattering sex scenes the likes of which we might not have seen since Last Tango in Paris. Wei is more than up to the challenge, and by the time she makes her final fateful choices I was so swept up within her travails two single words were all it took to send my pulse racing perilously close to devastation.

I just wish the movie itself didn’t leave me so conflicted. There is a lot going on here and Lee, with a filmography that ranges from Brokeback Mountain, to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, to Sense and Sensibility, to The Ice Storm, to The Hulk, once again shows a fearless determination as a filmmaker that should warrant considerable applause. But is that enough? I honestly don’t know the answer. 

What I do know is that few movies have left me so breathless, so wanting to know more and eager to try and unravel its secrets on a second (or maybe even a third or a fourth) viewing. While far from perfect Lust, Caution is still a masterful creation, and in my world that’s more than enough to make me happy no matter what else there is to say. This one deserves to be seen.

Film Rating: êêê1/2  (out of 4)

 Additional Links:

-  Lust, Caution Theatrical Trailer