"Lust, Caution" (2007)

Directed by Ang Lee, starring Tony Leung (Mr. Yee), Tang Wei (Mak Tai Tai / Wong Chia Chi) Joan Chen (Yee Tai Tai), Wang Leehom (Kuang Yu Min). Screenplay by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus from a short story by Eileen Chang.

My first impression of this movie was to compare it to two previous films, one a famous classic in suspense ("Notorious" (1946), the other an overlooked near masterpiece of erotic cinema ("The Lover" (1992)).

The title, "Lust, Caution," itself, suggests the theme, a synthesis of two genres that expose characters to powerful emotions and forces.

The story follows a young woman who is persuaded to become a spy by a young man who is too timid, innocent and self-absorbed with patriotic heroism to sense that she wants to love him. She accepts the task of becoming the mistress of a Chinese military man who is collaborating with the occupying Japanese so that her friends in the "resistance" can gain intelligence and ultimately assassinate him.

Hitchcock’s classic, "Notorious," hung on a similar framework, but differed in important character and plot points as well as style. Ingrid Bergman’s "Alicia," though far from sexually innocent, is thrust into the role as mistress (then wife) of the target, "Sebastian" (Claude Rains), a Nazi, at the behest of her often painfully diffident lover, the federal agent, "Devlin " (Cary Grant).

While "Notorious" focused on Alicia’s feelings for Devlin and his ambivalence toward her, it mostly treats her dealings with "Sebastian" with superficial detachment. We assume that Alicia has consummated her marriage, but there is no show of affection between them other than the formalities, as was befitting the era of film censorship. Hitchcock characteristically seems more moved by Sebastian’s ties to his domineering mother.

"Wong Chia Chi," the heroine of "Lust, Caution," is initially innocent, virginal, and naive. But she is also shown to be an imaginative actress who inhabits her role with passion and deeply felt emotions. She fully commits herself to both needs of her task and this yields her eventual tragedy.

Lee is far more interested in her dealings with the dangerous "Mr. Yee" than her unrequited love for her young man. Tony Leung is best known for Wong Kar Wei’s excellent neo-noir "2046" and "In The Mood For Love." He is well cast here due to his persona as a Bogart-like world wary (I do mean wary, though he is also weary) man who treads the tightrope of intrigue. His is a powerful masculine presence opposite the young actress, Tang Wei, whose delicate face and slender body conceal turbulent passions ready to explode.

Through graphic sexual encounters that earned the film a NC-17, the pair move from his cruelly sadistic dominance to eventual tender love and interdependence, leading to the tragic conclusion when she is faced with the decisive moment - whether to warn him of the impending assassination.

Lee’s achievement is to meticulously document the risky journey each tread, from "caution" to "lust."

"The Lover,"Jean Jacques Annaud’s film of Marguerite Duras’ story / memoir of her sexual awakening as a teenage girl in Saigon in the 1920's, is also explicit in its depiction of a related theme.

The Girl (otherwise unnamed in the story, played by Jane March), begins a torrid affair with The Man (also unnamed, played by Tony Leung - not the same actor as in "Lust, Caution"), learning lessons far more useful in her life as a woman than those of her convent school.

Her family are impoverished French colonials and her lover’s family is wealthy Chinese, raising the issue of social tensions involving the taboos of each culture in their secret affair, especially as it evolves into something like love.

The arc of the explicit sex scenes in "The Lover" are almost the reverse of those in "Lust, Caution," here beginning tentatively and ending in a final, brutal, near rape. Yet, in both films, the sex scenes are the rare ones which prove the overused cliché that they are essential to the telling of the tale.

Like a modern musical in which the setpiece numbers advance the plot rather than interrupt it, these encounters provide understanding of the evolution of the relationships involved. The characters change because of what happens in the darkened rooms.

It is not original to note that Ang Lee's body of work, so seemingly diverse in styles and subject ("Sense And Sensibility;" "The Hulk;" "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; "Brokeback Mountain") includes a common theme which this film shares: central characters who discover their true nature.

Yet, though all three films are excellent, I suspect that "Notorious" will remain the only one called "classic." The other two, because of their ratiings, had limited releases, and faced critics with the dilemma of admiring "pornography." Both are the dreaded "period pieces," demand patience with slow pacing, set in foreign locales. "Lust, Caution" is even subtitled, a fatal flaw.

But their DVD afterlives may provide new audiences who, in the privacy and leisure of bedrooms with remotes in hand, can discover these fine films.