Film Review: "Lust, Caution" (2007)This Venice Film Festival in its 64th Edition anticipating Erotic Thriller directed by Ang Lee as follow-up to Academy Award Winning picture "Brokeback Mountain" for Best Director and further revealing an understatement version versus Paul Verhoeven's effect-driven "Basic Instict" (1992) delivers additional suspense and visualized tensions between the precisely prepared cast members led by Chinese movie star Tony Leung as Mr. Yee, a governmental influenced decision maker in an war-occupied China of year 1942 and actress Wei Tang, who together deliver an honest look on how NC-17 rated motion picture entertainment looks like for an U.S. domestic market with a three explicitly infused scenes of sexual intercourse between encounters from oral, anal to vaginal sex practices in an skillfully captured use of sound design and camera motions in fields of vertical and horizontal planes by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who serves his director well in stark lighting to strong separated color themes of blue, green and black to find the story about revolting students in pre-world-war-2 China 1938 infiltrate governmental agencies over years to come without shying away even from murder to self-prostitution in order to liberate the people of their country from a Japanese stranglehold, which so beautifully finds its cinematic visualization under Ang Lee's direction in the relationship between the high-sparking chemistry of the two leading cast members.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Directed by Ang Lee, 'Se, Jie' AKA Lust, Caution is based on the novella of the same name by Chinese author Eileen Chang which is in turn based on a short story called The Spyring. The film adaptation and the novel are loosely based on events that took place during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai during World War 2, where a group of Chinese university students plot to assassinate a high-ranking special agent/recruiter of the puppet government Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) by using an attractive young woman, Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) to lure him into a trap. Interestingly, the story is closely rendition that of Eileen Chang's own real love life. In which she fell in love with a Chinese traitor during WW2. Like the story, their separation fell apart due to the betrayal. Chang wrote the book in 1950's Shanghai, not long before she fled China for fear of political persecution. The film has many modifications by Ang Lee for example, the explicit sex scenes that cause the movie to be rated NC-17 in the US markets. Being NC-17, cause many theaters not to carry the film, and limited the access to the viewing public. I wouldn't say, this movie doesn't belong in the NC-17 field, but for the most part. I have saw, much worst from other strong 'R' films; that clearly deserve to be NC-17. I wouldn't say this movie is for anybody would get uncomfortable about the topic of sex, nor do I think it's for any love story romantic lovers. The movie focus more on dangerous and painful of intimacy. This movie has some scenes that will be disturbing to certain people such as violent rape, S&M, and others. If the sex scenes were more passion based on love, maybe I would say, put the film with a title of R, but since most of the sex scenes are violent and graphic. I think NC-17 is what this movie deserves. The sex sequences could had been taking out or been cut down. This movie would just fine without them. There is a lot of erotic espionage thrillers films that work without going to the extremes. A good example is Alfred Hitchcock's 1946's film 'Notorious' that has a similar plot or better yet 2006's German film, Black Book. While, the sex scenes are explicit; it's not borderline useless filler porn. It only makes up about ten minutes of total screen time. Altogether there are only three or four scenes that contain sexual content or nudity within this two and a half hour movie. I think the violence mixed with the sex is hard to watch. It does do tell a lot about the characters. The cruel actions tells how terminally paranoid the man is. Chi shows, how mentally disturb, Chi is, by enjoying the sexual abuse cause against her. Some critics might hate the film due to the fact, that Chi falls in love with the man she's supposed to kill to the point that. The movie has this wonderful suspense, making you wonder if Chi will go on, with the assassinating plot or not. The movie does kinda drawn out the pace, but it did lose my interest, a bit between the time in Hong Kong and then the time in Shanghai. The violent in the film for one pervasive murder sequence is pretty bloody. It just as disturbing as the rape scenes. The acting in this movie is pretty good. Wei is just great, playing, both the innocent country girl with little sexual experience, and later as the sexy seducer. Tony Leung pretty much born to play dark brooding characters, so in this film. He doesn't really bring anything new with this role. I don't see him playing against type. Tony Leung portrays someone completely opposite of his usual characters. I doubt that. The sets are beautiful and looks like the time in which the story is place. The camera work by Rodrigo Prieto is amazing. The music by Alexandre Desplat's has this East meet West dramatic tone to it. While the movie isn't dub into English. The subtitles work with understanding the Chinese culture as a whole during this brutal realism period. The movie also hints a brief reference of a play by Doll's House by Henrick Ibsen of the dark times for women rights, then. In the play, a woman is unable to find herself, due to being control in a male domination world. The character of Wong Chia Chi is somewhat like that. She was abandoned by her father-figure, then forced by war into service by whoring by a mostly male patriotism companionship. She was already self-defeat before she met Mr. Yee. Then in the end, tragedy hits when she tries to choose her own path. The ending is shows the tragic consequence of how lust can made a person forget about their own safety and not focus on caution. The China version is a little bit, different than the American one in the ending. Make sure to look for the 2008 DVD with the NC-17 version, which includes ten minutes of footage not allowed by the MPAA to run during the original theatrical run. It's hard to watch, at first, but after multiple views, you can see that there is more to the film than a graphic controversial well-publicized sex scenes.

Lust, Caution 2007 indeed is one of the best films of 2007. Director Ang Lee once again delivers a quality movie. Set in WWII-era, the movie is an emotional tale at its best.There are things about the movie which are simply great. Cinematography is so well that it feels like you are going through the actual movie and it has a huge impact on the movie's interest development. The two and a half hour (I do say its long) of the movie is not boring at any time. The direction is powerful and the screenplay is genuine. Performances by the entire cast are also very well. The love making scenes look very original, must have been hard to film but they are not offensive or unnecessary. (Not for kids)Original Score by Alexandre Desplat is very nice to hear. and Rodrigo Prieto once again add a strong cinematography for the film. He not getting nominated for Oscar is a shame.Overall, the movie is very well done and the story told grabs your emotions hard and leave you thinking about LOVE at the end.And when it comes to Accolades, I think the movie is snubbed by most... there were statements that the movie is not from a single country but considering Slumdog Millionaire being from at least 6 different countries and winning the best Picture Oscar, it should have been nominated for few Oscars but I don't really care about that its still a CLASSIC.Its another excellent movie by Ang Lee. 9.5/10 Recommended to everyone.

Most of the movies I have seen recently have been more entertaining than moving. Not this one. This movie simply was incredible about its expressiveness. By seeing into the faces of the actors, you have been living through a myriad of feelings. It's rare a movie is achieving this for me. The reasons are several: Great story, great directing, great music, great atmosphere, great acting. Everything came together and created a movie on a rare level of perfection.****Spoileralert****Throughout the whole movie was an ulterior tension. You have always been scared that either the main actress gets caught, or the main actor is killed. It kept me interested through all 157 minutes.So why does this movie only have 7.6 points on IMDb? It deserves much more. There might be several reasons. Hong Kong movies are rated less high than Hollywood movies in general. And this movie here, doesn't have much in common with Hollywood movies at all. Especially the ending is something that can rarely be found in Hollywood movies. Also, the almost 3 hours might have been too much for many people. Another reason are probably the raw and controversial sexual scenes. I have to say though, they fit perfectly into this movie. They reflect the emotional world the two main actors live in perfectly. I really hate to see women "raped" in movies (she wasn't exactly raped), but it really seemed to "belong" to this movie.****Spoileralert ending****This movie deserves over 8 points on IMDb. I give this movie 10 points because it's is perfect in my eyes. It's probably going to be one one of my all time favorites.