Accessibility links
'Lust, Caution' A troupe of thespians goes undercover in Hong Kong and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation, hoping their ingenue (Tang Wei) can get close enough to a collaborator (Tony Leung) to let them attempt an assassination.

Review

Culture

'Lust, Caution'

Enlarge this image

Showmance: Actress Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei, right) sets out to seduce a collaborator (Tony Leung) in Lust, Caution, but soon her performance becomes a little too convincing. Chan Kam Chuen/Focus Features hide caption

toggle caption
Chan Kam Chuen/Focus Features

Showmance: Actress Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei, right) sets out to seduce a collaborator (Tony Leung) in Lust, Caution, but soon her performance becomes a little too convincing.

Chan Kam Chuen/Focus Features
  • Director: Ang Lee
  • Genre: Thriller
  • Running Time: 157 minutes

(Requires RealPlayer)

There's a bit of fairly explicit lust and an awful lot of dramatic caution in this World War II epic.

The plot is faintly preposterous — a troupe of Chinese college thespians goes undercover in Hong Kong and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation, hoping their ingenue (Tang Wei) can get close enough to a well-guarded collaborator (Tony Leung) to let them attempt an assassination. The ingenue falls for her target, which rather complicates things.

Having dealt significantly less explicitly with a different sort of forbidden love in Brokeback Mountain, director Ang Lee conjures up a persuasively bustling version of 1940s China for his lovers to inhabit. But he's allowed the storytelling to stretch to 157 minutes, which gets to be a bit of a slog — copious nudity and an NC-17 rating notwithstanding.