北美 "銀幕日報" - 李安

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Lust, Caution (Se Jie)
Dan Fainaru in Venice

30 Aug 2007 22:00


Dir. Ang Lee. China/US, 2007. 156 mins.
One of the main attractions in Venice this year, Ang Lee's new film promises
much more than it actually delivers. Lavishly handsome and elegant, possibly
too much so for its own good, this sprawling adaptation of a short story by
Eileen Chang risks leaving audiences cold - despite the sometimes excessively
passionate nature of its storyline.

Comparisons with Brokeback Mountain are inevitable but with its long-running
time and the subtitled, non-English content there isn't much chance that Lee
will secure the same level of global market success. Still, the high
production values and the presence of some of the sexiest movie scenes of the
year may well help the film navigate, at least for a while, the high-end of
the international arthouse circuit thanks to the director's already
established reputation. Ancillaries and DVD will be strong.

However he relative novelty of the torrid love-making scenes between Tony
Leung and tyro Tang Wei (some ninety minutes into the film), looking out of
place in the context of most Chinese cinema, don't add much depth to the
characters. Sexually explicit to the point of bluntness, a tamer version is
said to be in preparation for mainland China; censorship issues would
otherwise follow. Lust, Caution has already received an NC-17 rating in the
US which Focus Features are not disputing.


Though taking on a major slice of Chinese history it never explores beyond
its most obvious and superficial aspects. The plot fits perfectly within the
dimensions of a short story; in 1938 Chia Chi (Wei), a Hong Kong University
student, is drafted by the Resistance to participate in a plot whose purpose
is to murder a certain Mr. Yee (Leung), a collaborator with the Japanese
occupiers.

Pushed into this plan by a fellow student, Kuang (Wang Leehom), who is
secretly in love with her, Chia Chi takes on a fake identity and pretends to
be married to a rich merchant. Introduced into Yee's household, the plan is
a secution and delivery into the hands of the conspirators. But at the last
moment, Yee suddenly goes back to Shanghai before the plotters can act.

Three years later, Chai Chi is in Shanghai too, a poor student living with
her aunt and studying Japanese, when Kuang enters her life again, persuading
her to pick up the plot where it had been left in Hong Kong. She is supposed
to go back to Yee, who is now the head of the secret police in town, and when
he is in her power, help finish him off. But once Chia Chi and Yee become
lovers, their mutual lust burns them up to the point where she is no longer
sure of her mission. He throws caution to the winds as they both yearn with
equal passion to be in each other's arms.

Had Lee accepted that his film is about the conflict between duty and desire,
and worked smoothly on this premise, this could have been a far more focused
and precise film. Hitchcock, whose work is mentioned several times in his
picture, applied a similar approach to films such as Suspicion or Notorious
(whose plot bears more than just a little resemblance to Chang's story). But
by wishing to expand the story into a vast period portrait, first of Hong
Kong, and then of Shanghai, Lee opens up avenues that he never has time to
follow up.

What happens instead is one of those typical Hollywood scenarios consisting
of huge well-upholstered sets, which look far too clean and spruced up for
the world they represent. Pristine photography belies the frankly dire
conditions of poverty and war which the film is supposed to portray; costumes
too are decoratively ragged. A calm, laid back sense of montage contradicts
the urgency of the story itself and of the dramatic times it takes place in.

Joan Chen, as Yee's wife, presides over a bevy of perfectly made-up
socialites playing mahjong and gossiping to their hearts' delight (in
sessions badly in need of trimming) Not that one would notice it here but
their world is going up in flames.

The steamy clinches between the two lovers are the exception, going much
farther afield than most commercial pictures ever dare and revealing details
that are usually restricted to exploitation fare only. But since neither Chia
Chi nor Yee are more than briefly sketched it is hard to see these scenes
anything more than captured moments of enjoyable passtime. After all, her
motivations to stick with her deadly assignment are never satisfactorily
clarified, while his sadistic chief of police looks more like a pose.

Wei is lovely to look at and pretty fearless to play this part, but
complexity is not one of her distinguishing features. As for Leung, he was
far more of a smouldering, passionate, obsessed personality in Wong Kar Wai's
In the Mood for Love than he ever begins to be here. If anything, this film
might remind audiences of that earlier Chang adaptation, Stanley Kwan's more
intimate, more subdued Red Rose, White Rose.

Excessive use of dialogue largely carries the story; Lust, Caution's literary
origins haven't quite made the transition to the big screen.


Production companies
Hai Sheng Production Company
River Road Production
Focus Features Int.

International sales
Focus Features Int
(1) 212 539 4000

Producers
Ang Lee
James Schamus
Bill Kong

Screenplay
Wang Hui-Ling
James Schamus
Based on Elaine Chang's short story Se, Jie

Cinematography
Rodrigo Prieto

Editor
Tim Squyres

Production design
Pan Lai

Music
Alexandre Desplat

Main cast
Tony Leung (Chiu Wai)
Tang Wei
Joan Chen
Wang Leehom

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