Caution, Balls

Take caution indeed.  An NC-17 rating is one of those guilty pleasures that don’t always deliver once it’s consumed.  These days, the hankering to watch people go at it in full detail can easily be served with a laptop and internet connection, however the rare movie rating can still draw some level of attention, especially when an Academy Award-winning director of a movie about cowboys finding love, is involved.

With a no children under 17 warning, a stamp that usually condemns a film for its explicit content, usually involving nipples and vigorous gyrations, Lust Caution was probably branded the rating not so much because the anticipated sex scenes were exceptionally acrobatic or choreographed to a symphony, but because director Ang Lee, (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility), made it look so real.  In Lust, he beautifully depicts what hot sex between a sad, miserable, misunderstood guy and an impressionable college dropout really feels like, a bit uncomfortable, a bit erotic, and well, kind of hot, minus one or two armpit shots.  Rating aside, the sex really did fit in to the story.

Lust, Caution satisfies, but not just for the strategic camera placement, pretty photography and realistically shot sex.  Even if you go into the film anticipating the romps, the story of a group of students in a theater club conspiring to assassinate a Chinese intelligence officer, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), does draw you in.

The story takes place in Japanese occupied Shanghai during WWII.  Mr. Yee is working for the Japanese-backed government.  Wong Chia Chi, (Tang Wei), is a timid college student coming of age and looking for a place to fit in during war’s uncertainty.  Wong finds acceptance in her club of young thespians, led by Kuang Yu Min (Lee-Hom Wang), when she becomes the star of a patriotic stage production.  Her newfound talent is exploited when she is asked by Kuang to play a role in infiltrating the home of Mr. Yee, a man Kuang calls a traitor to China, in order to assassinate him.  Wong, with blurry eyes agrees with little hesitation.

It is a bit unconvincing that this innocent wide-eyed freshman is supposed to turn into a spy within a matter of months, and is expected to help kill a man.  She comes off as naïve throughout the film.  When she does fall into the role of seductress, it’s uncertain whether she’s just playing the part or is truly looking for that relationship in Mr. Yee that she really wants with Kuang, who is committed to the primary motive at whatever the cost.

Tony Leung’s performance as the emotionally vulnerable informant easily begs your sympathy with his reserved melancholic eyes.  Though he is branded the evil traitor, he comes off as a sad, overwhelmed and perhaps misunderstood man.  His secretive work doesn’t allow for a normal life.  The attention of a young woman, whose own husband is conveniently off on business most of the time, is cautiously welcomed.  Each casual moment between Wong and Mr. Yee hints toward the inevitable intimate encounter.  It takes some time before the two pull out the whip and get hard and wet, about a third through the movie actually.  When it happens though, you kind of think, “What was that?”  Then you immediately ask for some more.  And you get more.  The buildup that Ang Lee creates between the two characters justifies the violent passion.  But this is not the climax, the story and sex continues and we’re engaged by each individual’s struggle to make sense of what the next step is supposed to be.  The affair grows into an unexpected climax where both have their revelations, one just in time, the other, a tick too late.

At 157 minutes, the film is a bit lengthy of its adaptation of Eileen Chang’s original short story.  But, the details do matter with each and every frame.  It is his style and it works here as it did with Brokeback Mountain.  The Mandarin speaking film with English subtitles may also be a deterrent for most viewers, but then again, Lee has admitted this was not a film for mainstream; which may explain why he’d refused to cut down any of the sex scenes for the more tame R rating.

Lust, Caution has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which could mean that its limited release may continue through the New Year.  If not, watch for the dvd.  That way you can play with the slow-mo and freeze-frame to debate if the fuzz bumping is actually real.