Lust, Caution (2007) (original) (raw)
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Original title
Se Jie (Lust, Caution)
Year
2007
Running time
156 min.
Country
Taiwan
Director
Screenwriter
Cast
Music
Cinematography
Producer
Genre
Thriller. Drama. Romance | 1940s
Synopsis
Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a phone call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom). Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe's new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences – and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee's trust by befriending his wife (Joan Chen) and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted – until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee.
Awards
2007: Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion (Best Film) & Best Cinematography
2007: Nominated for Golden Globe: Best Foreign Language Picture
2007: BAFTA Awards: 2 Nom., Best Costume Design and Foreign Languaje Film
2008: Guldbagge Awards (Sweden): Best Foreign Language Film
2007: Critics' Choice Awards: 2 Nom., Best Foreign Language Film, Composer
2007: National Board of Review: Top 5 - Foreign Films
Critics' reviews
- "[Ang] Lee is a true master, and his potently erotic and suspenseful Lust, Caution casts a spell you won't want to break."
- "I didn't feel the love between the flowering idealist and the ruthless killer. If I did, I would have given the movie four stars. Everything else is wonderful."
- "There's too much caution and not enough lust."
- "A brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades, the Chinese-language Lust, Caution gets under your skin with its examination of what qualifies as love and what does not"
- "The film looks gorgeous but the plotting is clumsy and the acting is flat."
- Show 5 more reviews
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Ranking Lists Position
- 43 My Top 10 Movies from 2007 (104)
- 45 Most Memorable Erotic Movies (32)
- 78 My Favorite Asian Movies (60)
- 95 My Favorite Chinese & Hong Kong Movies (7)
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