nwasianweekly.com
Oct. 6, 2007

Photo provided by Focus Features

Tang Wei (left) and Tony Leung carry on an affair in Ang Lee’s newest film, “Lust, Caution.”

Ang Lee’s latest beautiful, but cold

By N.P. Thompson
Northwest Asian Weekly

In “Lust, Caution,” Oscar-winner Ang Lee’s first Chinese-language film since “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” patriotic drama students in 1938 Hong Kong stage a stiffly nationalistic play intended to bolster a populace battered by the Second Sino-Japanese war. Sure enough, the performance elicits frenzied audience exhortations of “China will not fall!” Heady with success, the group’s ambitious young director Kuang (played by pop singer Wang Leehom) announces their next production: infiltrate the household of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a high-ranking official in the Chinese collaborationist government, and assassinate him. Key to this scheme is the troupe’s leading lady Wong Chia Chi (a remarkably poised debut by Tang Wei), who will pose as “Mrs. Mak,” the wealthy, neglected wife of an absentee businessman, thus luring Yee into an affair.

There’s a romantic abandon with which Kuang and his friends initially immerse themselves. Time, nonetheless, wears on; one of the most true-to-life aspects of “Lust, Caution” lies in how Lee conveys the boredom of patriots growing frustrated by the slow pace of their entrapment plan. The men, eager to shoot a traitor, are stymied by the lack of a “kill,” and so remain under a sort of voluntary house arrest as they wait and wait. Lee’s direction details the mess their once-picturesque rented bungalow falls into—a litter of cigarette butts, shelled peanuts, and sweat-drenched undershirts.

Meanwhile, Wong’s flirtation with Yee takes off. In a tailor shop, she models for him a gossamer cheongsam of midnight blue. Later, they dine at an elegant yet empty restaurant where a white male pianist plays background cocktail jazz. When Lee pulls in for a close-up of the impression Wong’s lipstick leaves on the rim of her wine glass, you can see how she’s become drawn into her charade as Mrs. Mak, and how difficult it must be to return to the squalid house full of men.

The tough-mindedness of these interlocking sequences may be the most accomplished section of Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus’ screenplay. The students have placed their lives on hold in the name of ideals, in a single-minded pursuit that is so much larger than they are; the resentment over not being able to act erodes their humanity. Eventually, Kuang and the others are pitted against real violence in a gratuitously bloody stabbing scene wherein the victim doesn’t die right away. This protracted murder testifies to the ineptitude of the would-be killers, yet is sickening to watch.

“Lust, Caution” has been unfailingly described in the press as “erotic.” In the first of their couplings, Yee slashes Wong’s emerald dress from the back, slaps her with his leather belt, then ties her wrists behind her. The movie earns its NC-17 rating, but there’s nothing erotic about the stomach-churning hostility of these acts. Yee baits Wong for information about the resistance. He describes interrogation torture to her in graphic detail, his sadistic chatter leading to more rounds of lurid, repellent sex. There’s no joy in any of their various stages of copulation and no real passion either. It’s a 180-degree turn from the tenderness of “Brokeback Mountain.” “Lust, Caution” comes from a short story by Eileen Chang, a writer whose nihilistic views of intimacy Lee does not depart from.

The handsome sets, costumes and cinematography that recreate 1940s Shanghai, where most of the movie takes place, are wonders to behold, as is the lovers’ visit to a geisha house. Performing a traditional song in one of the tearooms, gesturing the part of an eager-to-please geisha, Wong slips into this persona as persuasively as she disappears into Mrs. Mak. Tang Wei, like Kim Novak in “Vertigo,” plays a demanding role within a role in nearly every scene, and she deserves an Oscar nomination. Later, Wong has a plaintive moment alone on the bustling Nanjing Road. Unable to catch a rickshaw, she roams past shop windows, her reflection imposed against well-dressed mannequins on display. That’s all she really is, Lee suggests. Here and elsewhere in “Lust, Caution,” it’s possible to admire the director’s insight into the ruthlessness of human nature, while hating what he depicts.

Opens Oct. 5 at the Egyptian Theatre, 801 E Pine St. Seattle. For ticket prices and showtimes, call 206-323-4978. n

N.P. Thompson can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

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