“THE WEAPON OF SEX”

By Raymond Benson

The great Taiwanese director Ang Lee has worked in Asia and in Hollywood, delivering an impressive array of motion pictures that have won awards, made money, and wowed audiences. A handful of his titles that includes Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Life of Pi (2012) place him on a top tier of filmmakers working today. He’s also won two Oscars for Best Director for the latter two titles.

Lee’s 2007 feature that came after the success of Brokeback Mountain was Lust, Caution, a Hong Kong/American co-production that won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, made some waves in Asia and other markets internationally, but was, sadly, little seen in the West. That said, Focus Features, which distributed the picture, has said that Lust, Caution is the highest grossing movie rated NC-17 ever released in the U.S. More on that in a bit.

The film is inspired by the true story of Chinese spy Zheng Pingru, a woman who allowed herself to be the bait in a “honey trap” for a Japanese collaborator target during the Second Sino-Japanese War, which began in 1937 and folded into World War II. The movie is based on a novella by Eileen Chang, and it was adapted for the screen by Hui-Ling Wang and James Schamus, the latter a longtime colleague of Lee.

In the late 1930s, the Japanese have occupied most of China and the country is being ruled by a puppet government. Many Chinese officials, including Mr. Yee (Tony Leung, credited as Tony Chiu-Wai Leung), a handsome, but rather cold elitist who acts as a recruiter and special agent. In short, he is a traitor to his country. A naïve but passionate group of university theatre students in Hong Kong devise a half-baked plan to assassinate Yee by luring him to a remote location. Young Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) volunteers to be the seductress, even though she’s a virgin and is clearly out of her depth. The attempt fails, there is a violent disaster (an astonishing sequence that can’t be revealed here!), and the students flee and scatter. The story resumes in 1942 in Shanghai as the students, now resistance fighters, regroup and start their plan anew. This time Wong Chia Chi is much more confident, has been trained, and can do a much better job at seducing Yee. Unfortunately, Yee, despite his villainy, is charismatic, powerful, and teaches the woman a thing or two about sex and passion. Now conflicted, Wong is caught in her own honey trap in which newly discovered lust and her duty to country battle for domination of her spirit. Sex has indeed become a weapon on both sides.

Lust, Caution is a fascinating, beautifully shot movie that is extremely well acted. The period detail is compelling, and the sense of foreboding and oppression that motivates the characters is palpable. The performance by Tang Wei, especially, is courageous and revealing in shocking vulnerability, considering the sex scenes depicted. Tony Leung, a stalwart actor in Hong Kong pictures, exhibits a different persona than one previously seen in his action flicks.

The movie was controversial in many markets because of the explicit nature of the sex scenes and the one sequence of violence. In America, the film was rated NC-17, which is considered box office poison. Ang Lee refused to make cuts, so it was released intact. Other markets censored the picture on their own—for example, China released it in a heavily-cut version, and it was a hit. It must be said that the sex scenes are gorgeously photographed and powerfully presented so that the emotions between the two characters are unambiguous. This is important to the story and serves to justify Wong’s actions toward the end of the movie.

This reviewer’s only quibble with the film is that the ultimate message is a little too cynical. The thrust of the story examines a young woman’s sacrifices of her mind, heart, and body to patriotism, and it brings up difficult moral questions that are not easily answered. This is not a happy movie. In fact, it is quite troubling, and that is likely the point.

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray presents the uncensored NC-17 cut of Lust, Caution in a gorgeous digital restoration. It comes with an audio commentary by film historian Eddy Von Mueller. The only supplement aside from the theatrical trailer is a short featurette on the making of the film.

Lust, Caution is a challenging erotic thriller that will appeal to fans of World War II history, Chinese and Hong Kong pictures, and the films of director Ang Lee. For adults with discerning tastes.

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