Film Reviews

Lust, Caution (Se, Jie)

• Rating:
• Director: Ang Lee
• Starring: Joan Chen
• Details: USA / China / Taiwan / Hong Kong / 157mins (18)

Shanghai, 1942, and a group of Chinese amateur actors bond together to bring down a traitor who recruits Chinese volunteers for the Japanese invaders. Newcomer Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) is selected to pose as a married woman and infiltrate the house of the collaborator, businessman Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chui Wai). However, there's an instant attraction between Yee and the spy, and Chia Chi slowly falls in love with him. Slowly? Snails with an IQ of 60 move quicker than Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. After Brokeback Mountain, the Taiwan director delivers the most heterosexual film of the year (well, maybe Good Luck Chuck takes that prize) and almost beats Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs in the 'is-it-porn-or-is-it-art' stakes. Lee wants Lust, Caution to be a lot: he wants it to be an epic, to be beautiful, sad, sexy, explore the battle of devotion vs. loyalty, right vs. wrong, making love vs. sadomasochism and what really rules us - the heart or the head? All boxes are ticked but since the tone is so monotonous, the pacing so sluggish and because nothing much happens, which for almost three hours is a big ask for anyone to sit through, Lust, Caution is a bloated boring nothing.

Review by Gavin Burke