Lust, Caution is a Work of Art
April 29, 2008Let’s be blunt here. Ang Lee’s Chinese language film, Lust, Caution is not just a sex story. To call it that is to ignore it’s depth of character, the lush story and dark undertones, the masterful crafting of a story that pours out of the screen in gushes. For a movie with such serious and explicit erotic scenes that it was banned in China, sex hardly has anything to do with it.
This is one of the the most amazing films you will ever see. But be forewarned; it is going to affect you.
Western moviegoers may not be familiar with Tony Leung, but he is without question one of the finest actors living today. Leung has made a name for himself over the past twenty four years playing the romantic hero. In this film, he fills the screen as the gentle and dangerous Mr. Yee, a Japanese sympathizer who carries out brutal justice on his own Chinese countrymen. Yet, he knows inwardly that he is a doomed soul, carrying out the killing orders of people he does not respect. He is lost to his fate, and he knows it.
As Leung puts it, Lust, Caution is a love story between ‘Evil and Human.’
Considering that the lead of the film, playing opposite Leung is actress Tang Wei in her first film, it is astounding that she equally fills the screen, and it is even more astounding that she plays two distinct characters perfectly and flawlessly. As her character transforms from a Chinese everywoman into the guise of a socialite wife of a Chinese businessman, she literally becomes larger than life in the role. It consumes her.
The story of Lust,Caution is intertwined around these two, as she is bent on seducing him to have him assassinated, while he seems aware that she is not what she seems; yet still he is touched by her.
This is more than a love story. It’s real. It’s a struggle.
