Each month we showcase a movie selected by one of our VIFF+ Premium members. This month, Shanwen Yan chooses Ang Lee’s 2007 drama.
Lust, Caution was Ang Lee’s first film after the Academy Award-winning Brokeback Mountain. Based on a short story by Eileen Change, it’s a classic spy thriller set in Hong Kong in 1938. Tang Wei stars as an idealistic drama student, Chia Chi, who is recruited to set up a Japanese official, Yee (Tony Leung) in an assassination attempt. The first ploy narrowly fails, but four years later in Japanese-occupied Shanghai a second opportunity presents itself. She seduces Yee, but their affair gets out of hand…
Released with an NC-17 rating in North America and cut by 7 minutes in China, Lust, Caution won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and stands up as one of Ang Lee’s most compelling and complex films.
Shanwen Yan has this to say about why he chose this movie:
Lust, Caution came out when I was in middle school and at that time my only impression of the film was the news about the erotic scenes (apparently I was not allowed to watch it). However the masterpiece ages really well and as I grew up I realized it was such a shame the movie got appreciated vulgarly. If you want to learn about Chinese literature you can’t avoid Chang Ai-ling and if you want to learn about Chinese cinema you can’t avoid Ang Lee, also as the debut movie of the wonderful actress Tang Wei, this is simply the perfect movie to revisit from time to time.
It’s a masterpiece of tangled allegiances and corrupted innocence, equating sexual intimacy with the search for a person’s soul. There’s no guarantee the discovery will bring joy.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star
A brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades, the Chinese-language Lust, Caution gets under your skin with its examination of what qualifies as love and what does not.
Kenneth Turan, LA Times
A pleasure to watch a film as visually stylish as it is psychologically demanding. I wish it had been twice as long.
Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph
Ang Lee
Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Anupam Kher
China/USA
2007
In Mandarin, Japanese, English, Shanghainese, Hindi, and Cantonese with English subtitles
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Credits
Screenwriter
James Schamus, Hui-Ling Wang
Cinematography
Rodrigo Prieto
Editor
Tim Squyres
Original Music
Alexandre Desplat
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