The main thing people think of when it comes to Lust, Caution is the sex. And for once that’s as it should be. Director Ang Lee has made a rare erotic film in which the eroticism is more than window dressing. Set in Japanese-occupied China in 1942, Lust, Caution follows a young college student named Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) who joins a politically motivated drama society and soon gets a chance to act off the stage. Hoping to assassinate a Japanese collaborator named Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), the troupe convinces Wong to ingratiate herself as Yee’s mistress and set him up for the kill. The explicit scenes between Wong and Yee are at first dangerous and frightening, then they transform into something that resembles, if not love, at least mutual passion. Altogether, this may be the first time at the movies you get a real sense of the physical and emotional sacrifice a woman makes when she offers herself as a surveillance device.
