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The whole controversy thing worked out well for director Ang Lee two years ago, when his Brokeback Mountain snagged three Oscars. So Lee chose to play the controversy card again with his latest film, Se, Jie (Lust, Caution). This time, though, the controversy was so great that it completely overshadowed the film itself—to the point that, by the time I sat down to watch it, I had no clue what it was about, but I knew enough to brace myself for a little Tuesday night porno.
Based on a short story by Eileen Chang, Lust, Caution tells the story of a group of Chinese students in 1938 Hong Kong who decide to support the revolution by infiltrating a group of Japanese-friendly traitors. Young Wang (Wei Tang) agrees to pose as the wife of a wealthy businessman in order to befriend Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen), the wife of a powerful political figure (played by Tony Leung). Yee is a cautious and paranoid man, so the only way to get close enough to kill him is to seduce him.
Though the group’s first clumsy attempt fails, they contact Wang three years later, in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Yee is more powerful and more dangerous than before—and the resistance knows that Wang is their only hope.
At its core, Lust, Caution is just what its title suggests. It’s a story about lust and caution—and how, in this case, the former eventually seems to diminish the latter. The story of political espionage is nothing new, but it looks absolutely stunning—just as you would expect from Ang Lee. It’s fortunate that it’s so visually stunning, though—because the story, while somewhat interesting, lacks passion.
In a movie that’s two and a half hours long, you might expect to really get to know the main character, but Wang seems completely unmotivated and unemotional. She feels abandoned by her father, who fled to England with her brother—but that doesn’t seem to be reason enough to join a group of revolutionaries. One day, they just approach her and say (I may be paraphrasing a bit here), “We’re thinking about starting a band of revolutionaries for the summer. Wanna join?”
“Okay.”
“We’re gonna kill people. You okay with that?”
“Why not?”
“We want you to have sex with a bad, bad man so we can kill him when he’s not looking. So you’re gonna have to have sex with Jimmy a few times, so you’ll look like you know what you’re doing, okay?”
“Well, he’s kinda homely…but okay.”
And while I suppose a spy would have to disconnect herself a bit, it seems like Wang doesn’t really care about anything. Even when she’s supposed to be expressing emotion, she’s just flat. Perhaps that’s just the price you pay when you’re trying to understand a character while reading subtitles, but I had a hard time truly understanding and caring for Wang. I couldn’t feel what she was feeling—and that made the movie drag.
As for the graphic sex scenes, I’m amazed that Lee was so unwavering that he took the box-office-killing NC-17 rating instead of editing a bit to get an R rating (which he eventually did to keep from being banned in some countries). The film could have told the same story—and made the same point—while showing a little less. It’s clearly all about the shock value (and the controversy), but it’s just not worth it—nor is it necessary. Those moviegoers who want to see it for the sex won’t want to sit through two and a half hours of foreign political drama just for a few graphic scenes. And those who would actually enjoy a two-and-a-half-hour foreign political drama about 1940s China will most likely be put off (and turned off) by the film’s graphic nature. So what’s the point?
Though it tells an interesting story—and it’s strikingly beautiful—Lust, Caution just isn’t the powerful, moving film that it could have been. Had Lee focused less on the shock value and focused more on the storytelling and the emotion, it could have been a brilliant film. But, in the end, it doesn’t really live up to all the hype.
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