After the controversial western drama “Brokeback Mountain”
, Ang Lee get the attention with another controversial drama that had taken him back to his hometown, “Lust, Caution”. The film had once again become an acclaimed work for Lee from the international and domestic movie awards to its domestic release box office, which competed with "The Warlords" in the top position of 2007 highest grossing movies. Lee has embarked upon a cinematic adaptation of Eileen Chang’s finest work “Lust, Caution”. Eileen is the famous author that moved to America from China in 1949, and was beloved as one of the finest writers of her generation. Her Lust tale focuses in Shanghai in the era of World War II, the story involves a plot to assassinate an intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government. Asian cinema icon Tony Leung (Hero, In the Mood for Love) plays the intelligence chief, Mr. Yee. Chinese veteran actress Joan Chen plays Yee’s wife, and a rising star in mainland China, Tang Wei makes her feature film debut as Wang Jiazhi, a young woman who gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with Mr. Yee. Other casts of the movie include Taiwan famous singer Wang Lee Hom, Tony Wang, Chu Chih Ying, Indian veteran actor Anupam Kher and Shyam Pathak. The DVD version for “Lust, Caution” is now ready to be adding on your favorite collection, the region 1 or even its region 3 is already stocked in the market.
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.
Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong - having emigrated from Hong Kong - goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit...
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 country, a 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).
Product Details:
Product Title: Lust, Caution (Widescreen NC-17 Edition)
Actors: Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom
Directors: Ang Lee
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English, Japanese
Subtitle: English, Chinese(Traditional/Simplified)
Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: All Region and Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 1
Country Made: Taiwan
Genre: War Drama
Distributor: Universal Studios
Release Date: February 19, 2008 (Order your copy here and here!)
Story-Meter: 7/10
Ending-Meter: 7/10
Actors-Meter: 7/10
Overall-Meter: 7/10
The film review by Roger Ebert (Suntimes.com)
Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is first languid, then passionate, as it tells the story of a young woman who joins a political murder plot and then becomes emotionally involved with her enemy. It begins at a 1942 Mah-Jongg game in Hong Kong, when erotic undertones become clearly audible to us, and then flashes back to Shanghai, 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China. One of the rich ladies at the game table is revealed to have been a college student, and not really the wife of a wealthy (but unseen) tycoon. The underlying plot gradually reveals itself. Too gradually, some will believe, unless the languor is necessary to create the hothouse atmosphere that survives in the midst of war. The Mah-Jongg game is taking place in the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), whose wife (Joan Chen) is the hostess. Since coming from Shanghai, he has moved up in the collaborationist government, handles interrogations and tortures, and is repaid by status and access to such restricted items as nylon stockings, cigarettes, even diamonds.
When Mr. Yee comes home in the middle of the game, he exchanges a significant look with Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei), who first joined the circle in Shanghai. It's clear to us there's something secret and intimate between them. But who is this wealthy Mrs. Mak, who travels in a chauffeured car but whose husband is always away on business? The flashback reveals her as Wong Chia Chi, a young student who on summer vacation falls in with a group of radical Chinese patriots and takes a key role in their hope of assassinating one of the Chinese who are working with the Japanese. Her assignment: become Mr. Yee's lover. This she did in Shanghai, but the war separated them before she was able to bring about an opportunity for Yee's murder (she is not expected to do it herself). A natural actress, she took easily to the roles of lover and rich woman. But she had some difficulty in sacrificing her virginity, which was necessary for her to play a married woman convincingly. We do not see Mr. Yee at work, torturing his countrymen, but Leung is able to project the man's capability for menace and begins to do that in bed with her. Then commence the scenes that earned the film its NC-17 rating. They are not specifically hard core in detail, but involve so many arcane and athletic sexual positions that the MPAA's injunction against the depiction of "thrusting" is left with their clothes on the floor. When their sex drifts steadily into S&M, the nature of their relationship shifts. It is impossible to say that Wong Chia Chi/Mrs. Mak likes his tastes in pain and bondage, but they create a fearful intimacy that, for both of them, transcends their lives apart. And it is that tension, between private fascination and public danger, that gives the movie its purpose. Failing to find the connecting link between such Ang Lee films as "Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Hulk," I was quickly corrected by readers who said, obviously, all his films are about people trying to realize their essential natures despite the constraints of society. Readers, you were right. Here we have a woman who hates her lover enough to help kill him, and yet is mesmerized by him. And a man whose official position would be destroyed by the exposure of this affair (especially if Mrs. Mak's true identity were discovered). Yet the heart, as Pascal said, has its reasons. Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak are just as transgressive as the Brokeback lovers, just as entranced by a form of sex that is frowned on by their societies. There is not a frame of the film that is not beautiful, but there may be too many frames. Why does Ang Lee go into such depth and detail to establish this world, and why does he delay the film's crucial scenes? I don't know, but of course seeing the film the first time I didn't know that was what he was doing and grew restless before I grew involved. Asked to edit the sex scenes to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating, Lee quite properly refused and was backed all the way by James Schamus, his co-writer and also, significantly, head of Focus Features, which is releasing the film. 
The nature of the sex is Lee's subject, and he is too honest to suppress that. His moments of full frontal nudity avoid the awkwardness of most movie sex scenes in which the lovers, although alone, carefully mask their naughty bits. The scenes are not edited for erotic effect, it must be observed, but are treated in terms of their psychological meaning. Film by film, Ang Lee, from Taipei out of the University of Illinois, has become one of the world's leading directors. This film was his second Golden Lion winner in three years at the Venice Film Festival. But it is not among his best films. It lacks the focus and fire that his characters finally find. Less sense, more sensibility.
, Ang Lee get the attention with another controversial drama that had taken him back to his hometown, “Lust, Caution”. The film had once again become an acclaimed work for Lee from the international and domestic movie awards to its domestic release box office, which competed with "The Warlords" in the top position of 2007 highest grossing movies. Lee has embarked upon a cinematic adaptation of Eileen Chang’s finest work “Lust, Caution”. Eileen is the famous author that moved to America from China in 1949, and was beloved as one of the finest writers of her generation. Her Lust tale focuses in Shanghai in the era of World War II, the story involves a plot to assassinate an intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government. Asian cinema icon Tony Leung (Hero, In the Mood for Love) plays the intelligence chief, Mr. Yee. Chinese veteran actress Joan Chen plays Yee’s wife, and a rising star in mainland China, Tang Wei makes her feature film debut as Wang Jiazhi, a young woman who gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with Mr. Yee. Other casts of the movie include Taiwan famous singer Wang Lee Hom, Tony Wang, Chu Chih Ying, Indian veteran actor Anupam Kher and Shyam Pathak. The DVD version for “Lust, Caution” is now ready to be adding on your favorite collection, the region 1 or even its region 3 is already stocked in the market.
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.Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong - having emigrated from Hong Kong - goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit...
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 country, a 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).
Product Details:
Product Title: Lust, Caution (Widescreen NC-17 Edition)
Actors: Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom
Directors: Ang Lee
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English, Japanese
Subtitle: English, Chinese(Traditional/Simplified)
Audio Specs: Digital Surround 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0
Region: All Region and Region 3 South East Asia (including Hong Kong, S. Korea and Taiwan)
Number of discs: 1
Country Made: Taiwan
Genre: War Drama
Distributor: Universal Studios
Release Date: February 19, 2008 (Order your copy here
and here!)
Story-Meter: 7/10Ending-Meter: 7/10
Actors-Meter: 7/10
Overall-Meter: 7/10
The film review by Roger Ebert (Suntimes.com)
Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is first languid, then passionate, as it tells the story of a young woman who joins a political murder plot and then becomes emotionally involved with her enemy. It begins at a 1942 Mah-Jongg game in Hong Kong, when erotic undertones become clearly audible to us, and then flashes back to Shanghai, 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China. One of the rich ladies at the game table is revealed to have been a college student, and not really the wife of a wealthy (but unseen) tycoon. The underlying plot gradually reveals itself. Too gradually, some will believe, unless the languor is necessary to create the hothouse atmosphere that survives in the midst of war. The Mah-Jongg game is taking place in the home of Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), whose wife (Joan Chen) is the hostess. Since coming from Shanghai, he has moved up in the collaborationist government, handles interrogations and tortures, and is repaid by status and access to such restricted items as nylon stockings, cigarettes, even diamonds.
When Mr. Yee comes home in the middle of the game, he exchanges a significant look with Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei), who first joined the circle in Shanghai. It's clear to us there's something secret and intimate between them. But who is this wealthy Mrs. Mak, who travels in a chauffeured car but whose husband is always away on business? The flashback reveals her as Wong Chia Chi, a young student who on summer vacation falls in with a group of radical Chinese patriots and takes a key role in their hope of assassinating one of the Chinese who are working with the Japanese. Her assignment: become Mr. Yee's lover. This she did in Shanghai, but the war separated them before she was able to bring about an opportunity for Yee's murder (she is not expected to do it herself). A natural actress, she took easily to the roles of lover and rich woman. But she had some difficulty in sacrificing her virginity, which was necessary for her to play a married woman convincingly. We do not see Mr. Yee at work, torturing his countrymen, but Leung is able to project the man's capability for menace and begins to do that in bed with her. Then commence the scenes that earned the film its NC-17 rating. They are not specifically hard core in detail, but involve so many arcane and athletic sexual positions that the MPAA's injunction against the depiction of "thrusting" is left with their clothes on the floor. When their sex drifts steadily into S&M, the nature of their relationship shifts. It is impossible to say that Wong Chia Chi/Mrs. Mak likes his tastes in pain and bondage, but they create a fearful intimacy that, for both of them, transcends their lives apart. And it is that tension, between private fascination and public danger, that gives the movie its purpose. Failing to find the connecting link between such Ang Lee films as "Sense and Sensibility," "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Hulk," I was quickly corrected by readers who said, obviously, all his films are about people trying to realize their essential natures despite the constraints of society. Readers, you were right. Here we have a woman who hates her lover enough to help kill him, and yet is mesmerized by him. And a man whose official position would be destroyed by the exposure of this affair (especially if Mrs. Mak's true identity were discovered). Yet the heart, as Pascal said, has its reasons. Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak are just as transgressive as the Brokeback lovers, just as entranced by a form of sex that is frowned on by their societies. There is not a frame of the film that is not beautiful, but there may be too many frames. Why does Ang Lee go into such depth and detail to establish this world, and why does he delay the film's crucial scenes? I don't know, but of course seeing the film the first time I didn't know that was what he was doing and grew restless before I grew involved. Asked to edit the sex scenes to avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating, Lee quite properly refused and was backed all the way by James Schamus, his co-writer and also, significantly, head of Focus Features, which is releasing the film. 
The nature of the sex is Lee's subject, and he is too honest to suppress that. His moments of full frontal nudity avoid the awkwardness of most movie sex scenes in which the lovers, although alone, carefully mask their naughty bits. The scenes are not edited for erotic effect, it must be observed, but are treated in terms of their psychological meaning. Film by film, Ang Lee, from Taipei out of the University of Illinois, has become one of the world's leading directors. This film was his second Golden Lion winner in three years at the Venice Film Festival. But it is not among his best films. It lacks the focus and fire that his characters finally find. Less sense, more sensibility.
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