Lust, Caution (2007)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 145
Fresh: 105 | Rotten: 40
Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a tense, sensual and beautifully-shot espionage film.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 44
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 18
Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a tense, sensual and beautifully-shot espionage film.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 50,576
Movie Info
Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee adapts this Eileen Chang story set in World War II-era Shanghai that details the political intrigue surrounding a powerful political figure named Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Spanning the late '30s and early '40s, the movie introduces us to Hong Kong teen Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei), a shy college freshman who finds her calling in a drama society devoted to patriotic plays. But the troupe's leader, Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom), isn't just
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Cast
-
Tang Wei
Mak Tai Tai -
Joan Chen
Yee Tai Tai -
Wang Lee Hom
Kuang Yu Min -
Tou Chung Hua
Old Wu -
-
Kao Ying Hsuan
Huang Lei -
Ko Yu Lien
Liang Jun Sheng -
Johnson Yuen
Auyang Ling Wen, Mr. Ma... -
Chin Ka-lok
Tsao -
Su Yan
Ma Tai Tai -
He Saifei
Hsiao Tai Tai -
Song Ru Hui
Wang's Aunt -
Fan Kuang Yao
Secretary Chang -
Lisa Yen Lu
Mahjong Partner of Aunt -
Anupam Kher
Jewelry Shop Manager -
Jie Liu
Leung Tai Tai -
Yu Ya
Chu Tai Tai -
Ling Lin Wang
Liao Tai Tai -
Dong Zhi Hua
Whangai Yee's Amah -
Wang Kan
Mr. Yee's Chauffeur -
Song Jian Hua
Yee Tai Tai's Chauffeur -
Takesita Akiko
Japanese Tavern Boss La... -
Fujki Hayato
Japanese Colonel Sato -
Seto Masumi
Geisha in Japanese Tave... -
Koyama Noriko
Musician in Japanese Ta... -
Shayam Pathak
Jewelry Shopkeeper -
Gu Zhang-Ping
Hong Kong Tailor -
Gao Bo-Wen
Male Ping-Tan Singer -
Yu Qun
Female Ping-Tan Singer -
Lau Yat Tung
Male HKU Theater Audien... -
Lai Yuk Ching
Female HKU Theater Audi... -
Yuji Kojima
Japanese Commander Taic... -
Mizogomi Yoko
Japanese Teacher -
Minamikata Fumika
Japanese Tavern Waitres... -
Anys Fatnassi
New Kiessling Café Wai... -
Tang Ya Jun
Tricycle Cab Driver -
Shi Hong
Woman at Police Line -
Deng Wei
Prostitute in Brothel -
Li Dou
Old Man at Bookstore -
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Lust, Caution Trailer & Photos
All Critics (152) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (105) | Rotten (40) | DVD (11)
Its dark romanticism lingers in the mind.
Overwrought and overlong, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution nevertheless has some moments of exquisite beauty and a potentially star-making performance from newcomer Tang Wei.
Lust, Caution asks some patience of us, but our patience pays off.
In a film where casting is a vital component in the edgy equation, Leung and Tang make a picturesque and dramatically compelling couple.
Both a cannily constructed spy thriller and a grim kind of love story.
There is deception, suspicion and self-delusion, but it all seems rendered at arm's length, despite the consummate artistry of the filmmaking.
Lee is hot, engaged, emotional, sincere and fundamentally looking at any slice of life through a sexual lens.
Lee is hot, engaged, emotional, sincere and fundamentally looking at any slice of life through a sexual lens.
Lovers of genuine cinema will get blue balls
Though his direction is unsurprisingly beautiful, the settings lush and the performances wonderful, no one apparently had the guts to insist Lee streamline his rambling story.
La mano experta de Ang Lee logra sostener el relato durante sus dos horas y media de duración, con algunos picos de intensidad en un par de escenas brillantemente resueltas.
For all Lee's meticulous control over this immaculately nuanced melodrama-thriller, there is a surprising lack of emotional draw.
What lingers is the suspicion that women carry a burden of war they can't ever put down, and that even noble idealists can justify turning their girls into whores.
Lee provides no such easy comfort, instead keeping audiences constantly off-kilter, purposefully frustrating them with character behavior that's just...wrong.
Like the many facets of a diamond, the human heart can find its lustre in dark places. Ang Lee's tortuous film about love and betrayal takes passion through highs and lows as it leads us through its tense and riveting journey
There's no doubt while watching Ang Lee's Lust, Caution that you're in the hands of a supreme filmmaker.
Lust - the word that speaks of inflamed passions, repressed longing and seriously naughty sex stands ill at ease with this rather languid exploration of freedom fighting during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in the early 1940s.
You leave the theatre a trifle exhausted but rewarded by a resonance few films possess.
Saucy sex scenes apart, however, it's hard to get drawn into a slow-moving, drawn-out story that takes two-and-a-half po-faced hours to reach its jarringly abrupt and confusing conclusion.
A pleasure to watch a film as visually stylish as it is psychologically demanding. I wish it had been twice as long.
A shocking disappointment.
For his sheer muscular verve and ambition, Lee deserves a standing ovation.
Quietly mesmerising.
The intensity of the sex is far more honest and revealing than the secrets each lover tries to hide.
Lust, Caution is strangely engrossing but the fairly straightforward plot does not justify the running time.
Isolated moments of high drama and some startlingly intimate sex scenes sadly fail to galvanise a turgid and overlong whole.
Audience Reviews for Lust, Caution
The story is set primarily in Hong Kong in 1938 and Shanghai in 1942 amidst the Japanese occupation of China, and the puppet government established there and concerns a young woman involved with a resistance group who plot to kill those "traitors" collaborating with the ruling Japanese government. As part of their plan to kill a certain target, the young woman goes undercover as his mistress, but soon finds herself in a dangerous position as her growing connection to him can't help but conflict with her efforts to help assassinate him.
Looking at just the broad points, this is not a new sort of story, and this sort of thing has been seen quite a lot before, especially with the whole war time angle. What makes this one unique is the specifics, namely the Japanese occupation of China, which is a topic not often explored in film (so far as I know). That's unfortunate too, because this is a rather fascinating subject. I'm glad that Lee decided to try to bring more attention to it.
Now, for the rest of this review, I need to make it clear that the version I saw was not the original (preferred) NC-17 cut, but the censored R-rated version. For this reason, I was kinda let down, and imagine that I'd be giving the regular version a higher grade. From what I can tell, all that's changed is the numerous and graphic sex scenes have been toned down a hair.
That's kinda dumb too, as these are things that are actually rather crucial to the story and characters, specifically the emotional impact of Mak Tai Tai and her relationship to the man she's supposed to help assassinate. The film was also wrongly billed as an erotic thriller. Yeah, it's a suspense/espionage thriller, but I wouldn't really call it erotic. It's steamy, sure, but the tone and context keep things from really being all that titillating.
Yes, the censored cut gets the point across, but it feels forcefully compromised.
Okay, enough with the ranting. All in all, this is quite a film. It's quite lengthy, but surprisingly light on dull moments. It's really absorbing and interesting, and you really get involved with how the events will play out. The love that Mak Tai Tai falls in with Mr. Yee isn't the sweetest, but there's no denying the two have a deep emotional connection, despite his roughness and trust issues.
The period details are quite nice, and the film has gorgeous cinematography. The writing is quite nice, the performances are terrific, and this is a wonderfully done variation on a theme. The ending is a bit odd and somewhat of an unsatisfying letdown, but the buildup remains quite good. All in all, a fine piece of work, even though the censorship issues leave some unfortunate scars.
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Foreign Titles
- Gefahr und Begierde (Se jie) (DE)
- Lust, Caution (UK)










Top Critic
Lee can build tension with small gestures and he has always been a fantastic director when it comes to acting. In his films he seems to somehow often get the best from his actors. Best thing in Lust, Caution is without a doubt young actress Wei Tang and her outstanding performance.
Much has been said about this film and it's steamy sex scenes between Wei Tang and Tony Leung but honestly i simply do not understand all the fuzz around them. This is not a film about sex, it is actually not a film about lust or love between two people at all. This is a film about a perfect performance and a autopsy of a actress that goes way too deep into her character. For me Lust, Caution is not a film about espionage or sex, it is all about being perfect.
Screenplay by James Schamus and Hui-Ling Wan is perfectly nuanced and has some fantastic dialogue in it, but the film itself is overlong and underplays it's cards too often. With tighter editing this could have been effective 90 minutes, Now it is stretched into two hours and twenty minutes.
Ang Lee is brilliant director with masterful eye for detail but Lust, Caution is not among his best films. It is a mixed bag with some stellar moments and well made production design.