Lust, Caution (2007)
Directed by Ang Lee
During World War II, a secret agent must seduce, then assassinate an official who works for the Japanese puppet government in Shanghai. Her mission becomes clouded when she finds herself falling in love with the man she is assigned to kill.
5 connections found
View:
5 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Lust, Caution to
The only thing about it that speaks to Hollywood is its mood, a glorious homage to the classic films of the 1940s, particularly espionage thrillers like Hitchcock's "Notorious."
An erotic, violent melodrama, filled with echoes of such Hitchcock movies as "Notorious" and "Suspicion," Lee's movie is composed of one highly flammable ingredient after another.
A spy-who-loved-me story reminiscent of Notorious (had Hitchcock added S&M sex), the NC-17 Lust is lush and seductive.
Several Hitchcock references are made during the movie, and the before long it becomes obvious that Lust, Caution�s natural touchstone is his Notorious, which definitively covered similar, sexually embroiled ground.
The last NC-17 film I recall was Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution in 2007, which also contained “steamy” sex scenes that looked more uncomfortable than erotic.
Like Lust, Caution, in which Ang Lee delivered a similarly antiseptic treatment of doomed attraction and carnal politics, Blue is the Warmest Color can’t begin to describe what being gay truly is like.
The first question revolves around the film’s depiction of abject sexuality, which is explicit enough to warrant the MPAA’s dreaded NC-17 rating (the first time a major U.S. distributor has dared market such a film since Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution in 2007), while the second questions revolves around the narrative that contextualizes all that abject sexuality.
And it is passion--from The Ice Storm through Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain--that Lee has so gracefully handled.
Because of that, this review comes with a disclaimer: I’m one of the two people on the planet who hated Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I think Brokeback Mountain is all issue hype and no substance, and I liked Hulk… the only Ang Lee movie everyone else seems to hate.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial-arts bonanza without the thrills, The Hulk is a comic-book blockbuster without the wonder, and Brokeback Mountain is a queer romance without the passion.
This is, after all, the man who gave us not only The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but also Hulk, which you'll recall featured a giant, digitally realized Eric Bana with nary a tubesnake in his boogie (although there was something disturbingly erotic about that giant fucking poodle).
Advertisement
(At least something seems to have rubbed off from Ang Lee’s wonderful Lust, Caution .)