ViewGuide

Created Nov 18, 2007 01:51AM PST • Edited Aug 16, 2019 06:26PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Lust, Caution is well titled. If you go for the NC-17 lust, make yourself comfortable because the build-up outweighs the slow-to-arrive albeit hot climax. Whatever, this superbly accomplished film immerses us in a foreign and bygone world, one timeless in its passions (yes, its lust), jealousies and intrigues.

   Note that the subtitles come faster than in most foreign language flicks, so be prepared to speed read for the full 2½ hours. They’re speaking Mandarin for goodness sakes.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Wei Tang, a newcomer discovered by Ang Lee for this movie, delivers a stunningly assured performance as the precocious wartime agent Wei Tang, evolving over the course of the movie from naive child to self-assured Mata Hari, until finally – as per Dylan’s Just Like a Woman – breaking just like a little girl.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

   Yes, that is the great Joan Chen as Mrs. Yee, queen bee of the evil tongued mahjong set.

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Ang Lee, one of the greatest directors working today, has crafted another of his finely observed, emotionally authentic movies in Lust, Caution. While the nearly three hour running time creates a test of viewer stamina over a parade of fast moving subtitles, his film never lacks for detail. Lacking only a surfeit of editing, it requires that we don’t begrudge Ang Lee of loving his creation too much.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.4

    Yes, there is fairly explicit sex, even rough sex at the start. Mr. Yee is a repressed bastard, so it isn’t pretty when he finally lets himself go. But it isn’t gratuitous, nor is it on-screen for more than a fraction of Lust, Caution’s 2½ hour running time, and doesn’t come on screen till well past the half way point at that. So I suppose the NC-17 was deserved, and the sex does achieve a certain level of heat, but I’m choosing to rate it no higher than 3 – Erotic.

17. Sex Erotic 3.0

18. Violence Brutal 2.6

    Life during wartime: normal people find themselves with blood on their hands, while traitors casually brutalize the blameless.

19. Rudeness Salty 1.7

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    The movie provides fascinating glimpses into:

    • China’s 1940s doomed defense against Imperial Japanese conquest
    • Chinese drawing room society, centered around the expert playing of Mahjong
    • The earnest strivings of young Chinese students at the dawn of WWII
    • The mysteries of the human heart when confronted with a monstrous personal dilemma

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0