By Brandon Nolta

Boy, you got to keep an eye on that Ang Lee. Every time you turn around, dude’s working in another genre, mixing and matching stuff. Doesn’t he know once you get pigeonholed, you’re supposed to stay there, lest the audiences and studios get confused? You don’t see Tarantino making period pieces, nor are you likely to see Sidney Lumet make a big-budget sci-fi extravaganza, so why should Lee get to play the field? Other than the fact he can, of course. Well, actually, I think that’s all the reason you need, and apparently so does Lee. LUST, CAUTION is just the latest entry in Mr. Lee’s canon to show he’s got the goods.

The movie jumps around in time a bit, but it all takes place between 1938 and 1942. War has broken out (you know, the big war with the Nazis and the A-bombs), and the Japanese have seized various ports and cities, including Hong Kong and Shanghai. In the midst of this, a young Hong Kong student named Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) falls in with a group of students dedicated to resistance. At first, their fight is carried on through performing on the stage, but they decide to take a more active role and form a cell dedicated to taking out traitors. Using their acting skills, they hit on a plan to infiltrate the lovely Ms. Wong into a friendship with Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen), in order to find the best way to pop a cap in Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a collaborationist whose specialty seems to be in extracting information.

The plan gets into swing, but before the trigger can be pulled (in more ways than one), the Yees have to leave Hong Kong. Three years pass, and Wong, now in Shanghai, falls back in with the resistance and agrees to take up her cover identity again, this time with some actual training. As Mrs. Mak, the wife of an import-export professional, Wong successfully works her way into the Yee household, and specifically, Mr. Yee’s bed. But, Mr. Yee ain’t terribly trusting, and Wong discovers the age-old truth about acting: pretend to be something or someone long enough, you become that which you play.


To the best of my knowledge, Ang Lee has never made a bad film (though he has made some that were more successful than others) and LUST, CAUTION is no exception. Superficially, it’s an espionage drama, and the fear of getting caught is always in the minds of the main characters, either by the authorities or the resistance. But the real fear, and the real fight, is the unspoken tug-of-war between Mr. Yee and Wong to not be caught out by the other, to do what they desperately want to do and not be left vulnerable in the process. These two get naked a lot, but exposed almost never, and it’s this duality that drives the movie. If you could hear looks and subtle facial expressions, this movie would sound like an explosion at the dialogue factory; for every word spoken, there are two or three gestures or looks that add layers of meaning to each syllable.

Wei Tang has the showier role here; she’s the main character, and everything hangs on her actions and thoughts, and she delivers on all counts. It’s Hong Kong veteran Tony Leung Chiu Wai, however, who makes the film work; Wong’s motivations are made clear in the story, but Mr. Yee rarely gives anything away, and it takes consummate skill to take a character that is pretty loathsome in his actions and yet still be able to find the humanity within. To do it using virtually nothing but body language is pretty damn impressive, and Tony makes it fly. Admittedly, the film is a little leisurely in its pacing (158 minutes was a bit much, especially cramped into a third-row rickety arthouse cinema seat), and if reading subtitles while hearing two or three different languages and dialects doesn’t float your boat, stay home. On the other hand, if involving drama flips your switch and you dig explicit sex (or at least don’t mind it), then LUST, CAUTION will indeed be your cup of tea.