Product Description

Provocative thrilling and passionate Lust Caution is the daring new film from acclaimed Academy Award®-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain; Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). Set against the backdrop of a transforming countrya young woman finds herself swept up in a radical plot to assassinate a ruthless and secretive intelligence agent. As she immerses herself in her role as a cosmopolitan seductress she becomes entangled in a dangerous game that will ultimately determine her fate. Erotic breathtaking and suspenseful this award-winning film is being called "exquisitely beautiful" (Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times) and "lushly sensual" (Leah Rozen People).System Requirements:Running Time: 159 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/PSYCHOLOGICAL DRAMA Rating: NC-17 UPC: 025193330628 Manufacturer No: 62033306

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1212 in DVD
• Brand: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.
• Released on: 2008-02-19
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Mandarin Chinese
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Amazon.com
Lust, Caution, Ang Lee's follow up to Brokeback Mountain, for which he won the Academy Award® for Best Director, continues his exploration of people with a passion for each other trapped in a world where their passion could be life-threatening, but in a very different context this time. Set in China during the Japanese occupation of early World War II, the underlying plot concerns the story of young Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), an actress and member of a small group of student resistors planning to infiltrate the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a high-ranking collaborationist government official, in order to kill him for his role in the torture and executions of Chinese resistance fighters. Chi ingratiates herself with Yee's wife, the sophisticated and cultured Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) under the guise of being the wife of a wealthy but unseen tycoon. Flashbacks tell the tale of how Chi came to be involved with the resistors: her acting ability is her most valuable asset, and her assignment is to act the role of Mr. Yee's lover, right down to the sex. The story of their love and the painful intimacy it involves for both of them is told through their sexual relationship, which starts out violently, drifts into S&M, and shifts with their feelings, moving from pain and fear to some sort of desperate connection. This is lust with a capital L; the film's sex scenes have become famous for their frankness and acrobatic portrayals (they took 12 days to film), but amazingly enough, it's never prurient. The nature of their sexual relationship, and not the sex itself, is the point. Chi falls in love with the man she's supposed to kill, but there is no stopping the mission and she knows it. The danger of it all collapsing for them both is ever present, and that's the Caution. The cinematography and direction in Lust, Caution is masterful, and every scene is beautiful. The film does drift into a languid pace, and at times one wonders why Lee would feel the need to draw it out at the expense of delaying the crucial climactic scenes. Still, it's a wonderful piece of storytelling that should only help solidify Ang Lee's place in cinematic history as a master of films that express the difficulty of being essentially human in an inhumane world. --Daniel Vancini

Stills from Lust, Caution (click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Not enough lust and too much caution
I expected much more out of this film given Ang Lee and an all-star Asian cast led by Tony Leung, but sad to say this film falls short. The story is compelling enough, set during WWII, with plenty of tensions. However, it feels more like a cautionary tale than it does a probing look into the complex set of relationships that underscore this revolutionary group of theatrical students.

It starts out with a group students trying to defy the system only for its protaganist, Wong Chia Chi (played by the lovely Tang Wei), to fall in love with a Japanese collaborator she was supposedly trying to seduce into an ill-fated move. Mr. Yee soon gets the upper hand in the relationship, and Ms. Wong is left pretty much powerless.

It is beautifully filmed, as one would expect from Ang Lee, but the characters never seem to move beyond cardboard creations, and the movie plods to its obvious conclusion, with a few S&M scenes along the way to spice things up.

Lee still hasn't matched his early efforts on film, such as Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, despite the increasingly more serious topics he explores.

A Beautiful Film
I found this Chinese period piece to be a visually stunning film of romance and suspense.

In pre-WWII era Shanghai and Hong Kong, Ang Lee directs the impeccable Wei Tang and Tony Leung Chiu Wai, as a school girl turned seductress and the successful, yet wounded traitor. Tang must seduce Wai in order to infiltrate his heart, thus making him vulnerable for assassination by the Chinese resistance movement. But things do not proceed so smoothly ...

Told in beautiful, color-rich cinematography, flash backs, and just wonderful acting, this story is compelling. I truly enjoyed this film.

Although the ending is sad, as is much of the film, and the sensual scenes graphic (they are quite shocking and long!), I still found this to be a beautiful story, told well with first class acting and stunning visuals. Highly recommend.

Slow but worth it
"Lust, Caution" is a magnificent film by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain (Widescreen Edition), Sense & Sensibility (Special Edition)). Bearing no resemblance to his previous films in themes used or in its direction, save for the amazing and beautiful scenes, this movie, as others by Lee, does what it intended to do: it explores characters as they are shaped by the idea, by the emotion and by the revolution love entails.

Wang Jiazhi is a young student during World War II Shanghai. She joins a student group that plans to assassinate a high ranking official by the name of Mr. Yee. Wang, who becomes a spy, must change her identity, become Yee's lover and sacrifice many things to accomplish her objective. What she did not expect were her feelings for Yee. As each character explores the repercussions of their decisions, as well as the path where their actions have taken them, we, as viewers, see quite the treatise on the basic and complicated thing called love. The characters are savagely shaken to confront their innermost desires, their lusts, their emotions; they are displayed brutally in this film, as their actions and reactions are scrutinized and studied in this film. It is brilliant.

It feels slow at first, but what we do not realize is that Lee is in fact building a bomb. As the tension builds, the inevitable comes to be and the characters face up to their own realization, we are simply in awe, at the edge of our seats, unable to breathe or blink, waiting for the end. The film is beautifully shot and definitely worth seeing.