Lust, Caution (2007)

You won't be disappointed!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It contains various kinkds of elements movies: sexuality, esthetics, suspense,etc. Really astonisthed at how they combine with each other and constitute a huge intricate artwork. Hope for your next Mandarian movie, Ang Lee. You are such a sentimental and meticulous director.

I've grown sort of conservative in my old age. I used to be an avant gardist. I rejoiced in chaos and meaninglessness: I believe in narrative, now.That's why I rate this flick so high. It's a good example of a film that *perfectly* fulfills the purpose of narrative. A story is told, the detail is pitch-perfect, time flows like the "jiang"; the great concourse; and the drama is very direct, pointed right straight at the primal twin issues of love and power, refusing to look away from predictable and unpredictable outcomes.This is a perfect story. And you get the impression that Lee Ang knew *exactly* how high he had to rise to meet this extraordinary occasion, and he did so rise.I do want to touch on the key point of the movie--since it seems so many commenters here missed out on that. No spoiler here: In fact, the following may help you if you're about the watch the flick.Se, Jie has one thing in common with Inglourious Basterds, strange to say. But they do squarely share a theme: Can it really happen?: Could (should?) artists get sick and tired of winning all the moral battles, and decide to reach out and win a *real* battle; a real-world battle for truth and justice?And... yes: This gets directly tied to the deep, unspeakable tragedy at the end of Se, Jie.(And, bear in mind, this isn't the *only* theme; Se, Jie has a number of themes, at least as important as this one.)It's a great movie; one of those that you need to watch *carefully* before you die.

Having been a sincere fan of Taiwanese super-director Ang Lee since his superb 'The Ice Storm', I have seen him bravely move from one contentious subject, to another, usually with incredible aplomb.After sweeping the boards with awards for his English language and rightly popular 'Brokeback Mountain', he definitely doesn't rest on his laurels and did not re-make some other short story to the same successful recipe.Only a very brave or suicidal director would come up with a two-and-a- half hour, slow moving war-time epic set in Shanghai, as the follow-up. Listed under both Erotic and Period as well as drama and foreign language, these are not the genres that anyone wanting to make a quick buck would sanely go for. However, whilst stately and often beautiful, it is not one that I sit too happily with and I've just watched my DVD of it for the second time.The story is fairly complex and the first hour is spent setting up the remaining 90 mins. The leads, though are spell-bindingly hypnotic, especially in the often poetic and fluid direction. The music, too, for me, plays a big part, eking out and complimenting the emotions and feeling of the scenes.The erotic tag is justified, though if anyone thinks that it's wall-to- wall sex scenes WILL be disappointed - and wait an awfully long time for when they do. Despite their relative candidness, they are strangely beautiful and Lee has coaxed out that rare thing - intimacy with feeling - in the throws of passion it is possible to see just what each partner is getting from the sex, just from the expression in their eyes: quality stuff. Unfortunately, the sexual violence that precedes all this is difficult to watch and is one of the main reasons why I cannot wholly enjoy, or recommend this film. A pity.Is this a mis-judgement on Ang Lee's part? Possibly not and many do think it a great film of high merit. Having said that, we all have our no-go areas and at the end of the day, no amount of brilliance can wholly redeem a film, or indeed, anything which crosses those boundaries.

The title of the film "Lust, Caution", may also be read in Chinese as a "coloured ring", which is the object of crucial significance in the film. The pink-coloured diamond ring signifies the love that Mr Yee had for Chia Chi which Chia Chi realized when she put on the ring in the shop, where a trap was set for Mr Yee. In this pivotal moment, she then made the crucial decision to save her lover, warned him to get away, and as a result, sealed her own fate. Some people criticized the film for being too explicit, which I think missed the point of the film title. Like the film title, which says it's about lust (and ostensibly a warning against it), so in the film, the explicitness made it seems like it's about lust. In fact it's actually about love - Chia Chi's lack of love in her life, and when she found it in Mr Yee, she was prepared to sacrifice herself and her belief for her lover. The love is symbolised by the coloured ring, a possible reading of the film title, and the dual-meaning of the film title encapsulates the duality in the film, and the more important element is the love, not the lust.This film can be seen as a companion piece to Brokeback Mountain. At the end of the film when Mr Yee sat on her bed and realized what he had lost, mirrors the ending scene of Brokeback Mountain with Ennis with Jack's shirt in the closet. Both grieved for the lost love, except that in Mr Yee's case it was him that sent his own true love to death. What's captured in the ending sequence in both films is the image of loss, regret and loneliness of both men.