Lust Caution

The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version)
$9.98
This production is a masterpiece. Elegant, provocative, enticing and erotic. Somehow things such as history, revolution, love, eroticism, all mix together very well in this unique film.

Lust, Caution: The Story
$9.00
This book is incredibly short. You can't cover much in less than seventy pages.

I felt ripped off. It felt like we were simply given an epilogue, two chapters as a beginning (this book has no chapters, by the way), and cut off abruptly. At the best, it could pass as a short story.

They say that translating from foreign languages tends to lose its original meaning more often than not. I'm afraid the old phrase is true once more. If this is really what Eileen Chang wrote to become a masterpiece, I don't enjoy it very much.

This is pretty much the only case I can think of in which the movie was way better than the book; most times, it's the opposite case.

The words are lovely and flow together nicely, considering it was translated from Chinese scripts written in the 1950s and 1960s, but I found nothing truly memorable or remarkable about this book. Seriously, the only thing I can recall of this novella is four Chinese women with a bunch of random Chinese men running around in the background over fried duck, dumplings, and giant wedding rings.

I contemplated buying the Chinese version instead, but I didn't. Now I wish I did.

Lust, Caution (Widescreen Edition)
$19.98
This film seems to receive high regard because of the famous director, Ang Lee, but at the same time many viewers report it hard to understand, even boring, puzzling. What's going on?

Following up on Brokeback Mountain, which was for Americans, Lee made the one for his Chinese public. This is what we see - a young girl is recruited as a spy to seduce and bring down the head of the Chinese secret police collaborating with the Japanese occupiers. Alas she gradually falls in love with him and at the crucial moment, can't bear to see him killed. Without hesitation, he kills her instead. The story seems disturbing and unsatisfying, the characters do not seem to explain themselves, and the acting is wooden. So why would this lovely young girl fall in love with her target, who is a traitor to her country, whose sexual relationship with her starts with a brutal rape, and who is daily engaged in torturing and executing her comrades in the underground resistance? At the end, her saving Mr. Yee at the cost of betraying her friends and condemning them and herself is difficult to accept - is it just the gesture of a stupid girl who let her emotions get the best of her?

This film cannot be understood without appreciating, as the director himself said in an interview, that it is culturally "very Chinese." (It's also in the Chinese language with subtitles so Westerners are certainly missing many subtle clues.) There are depths of historical and cultural backstory here which every Chinese knows but most Westerners will not. First is the traumatic occupation of China by Japan from 1938 to 1945, an occupation marked by horrific atrocities against civilians including systematic sexual violence towards Chinese women. In fact rape was the very definition of conquest. It is also important that Eileen Chang - who wrote the short story behind the movie - was herself married to a man who collaborated with the Japanese, which was not uncommon. Also there is an Asian theme that romantic love is associated with obsession and pain. (Have you ever seen one of those Japanese music videos in which "love" is invariably depicted as a reason for tears?) Finally, the classical Asian ideal of womanhood is to accept a secondary role and sacrifice herself if necessary for her husband, who is lord and master. All these themes are played out in the film.

Much has been made of the NC17 sex scenes but these are a bit boring and not at all erotic. The lovers say nothing and show no real excitement nor do they ever smile. It all has quite a bit of symbology going on: the evil Yee as the occupier, the girl as China, even the start of their sex life as a rape which does not stand in the way of the girl accepting Yee as her lover.

One of the intriguing moments is after the girl and her cell of resistance fighters are captured and Yee's second in command reveals that the security police had known about them all along. When Yee asks his underling why he was not told, the answer is that Yee himself was suspected by his colleagues of cooperating with her because of their relationship. If this tension had played a bigger role in the movie, there might have been more drama. But it's not really a spy thriller - it's about the the subtle relationship of the two protagonists. When at the end she refuses to allow Yee to be killed and sacrifices herself and her friends instead, it is a kind of spiritual triumph for her - she was true to her traditional cultural values. Thus her way of life is proved superior, even though she dies and Yee lives. This echos the cry earlier in the movie, "China will not fall!"

Most of this will go right over the heads of you and me. For us, the best thing about the movie is the lovely photography of WWII Shanghai, the fashions and sophisticated upper class lifestyles depicted. For 100 years, Shanghai was a cosmopolitan, almost European city, which the producers reproduced meticulously. But the movie is made for a Chinese audience who will grasp its layers and historical context, even the association of sex with violence and romantic love with pain in Chinese and Japanese culture.

Without all that baggage, the movie is just period eye candy with a depressing ending. So three stars.

Lust, Caution (Uncut NC-17 Special Edition) DVD - Chinese Subtitle Only
$34.99
Winner of the 27th Annual HK film Award for Best Asian Film. A startling erotic espionage thriller about the fate of an ordinary woman's heart, it is based on the short story by revered Chinese author Eileen Chang, and stars Asian cinema icon Tony Leung opposite screen newcomer Tang Wei. Winner of the Best Picture [Golden Lion] Award at the 2007 Venice International Film Festival. The new film from Ang Lee, the Academy Award-winning director of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."