Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Lust, Caution/色，戒/Sè, Jiè/Sik1Gaai3 (2007) - Lee's erotic spy thriller is an exquisite, complex masterpiece

10/13/2018

Lust, Caution/色，戒/Sè, Jiè/Sik1Gaai3 (2007) - Lee's erotic spy thriller is an exquisite, complex masterpiece

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ 2nd Best Movie of the Year
+ Best Big Hit Movie of the Year + Best Taiwanese Movie of the Year + Best Erotic Movie of the Year + Best Period Movie of the Year + Best Spy Thriller of the Year

The two leads in a sensual embrace on this desaturated poster for Ang Lee's Lust, Caution with highlighted bloody reds

A young woman is engaged in a patriotic Chinese theater group in Shanghai in the late 1930s. Their energetic leader advocates fighting the Japanese occupation by murdering the local collaborator Mr. Yee. This becomes the beginning of a dangerous duplicity for the girl.

Lust, Caution is written by Hui-Ling Wang (The Myth/San wa (2005)) and James Schamus (Hulk (2003)), adapting Eileen Chang's (Love in a Fallen City (1943)) same-titled 1979 novella, and directed by Taiwanese master filmmaker Ang Lee (Life of Pi (2012)). It is a cinematic treat so irresistible that one floats through its extensive running time as on an exquisite period journey. Lee's vision is uncompromising, and he gives the film an intensity and a depth that is wholly his work.
Lust, Caution stands out due to stunningly beautiful images, (cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Babel (2006))), a meticulous, sensual sound design as well as costumes, hair, sets and language that continue to impress. And actors that give career-defining performances: Tony Chieu-Wai Leung (The Silent War/Ting feng zhe (2012)) is so natural as Yee, a character that stirs ambivalent feelings in us, and Wei Tang (The Golden Era/Huang jin shi dai (2014)) is simply incredible in every way as our brave, sexy protagonist.
Lust, Caution is a terribly well-made spy tale of lust, intimate bonds, national pride, treason, anguish and self-sacrifice, and it is among Lee's finest accomplishments.

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Brokeback Mountain (2005) or, That Place That Weren't Possible

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 15 mil. $
Box office: 67 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.46 times the cost)
[Lust, Caution premiered 30 August (Venice Film Festival, Italy) and runs 158 minutes. Shooting took place in Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur, in China, including Shanghai, and in Hong Kong, ending in September 2006. Lee has stated that the approximately 10 minutes of sex scenes in the film took roughly 100 hours to shoot, and that they were more difficult to produce than the elaborate fighting sequences in his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon/Wo hu cang long (2000). The film opened #49 in 1 theater to a huge 63k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #20 and in 143 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 4.6 mil. $ (6.9 % of the total gross), impressive for a foreign language epic with an NC-17 rating. The film's 3 biggest markets were China with 17.1 mil. $ (25.5 %), South Korea with 10.7 mil. $ (16 %) and Taiwan with 7.9 mil. $ (11.8 %). It was the highest-grossing Chinese-language film of the year in Hong Kong, and the 3rd highest-grossing Chinese-language film in China of the year. It was only released cut in China, India and other countries, and lead actress Tang was blacklisted from the Chinese film business for 3 years, because the dictatorial Chinese state disapproved of her performance's sexual nature in the film. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches harder than this one. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe, 2 BAFTAs, won 1/6 Asian Film award nominations, was nominated for 3 Independent Spirit awards, won a National Board of Review award and two awards at the Venice Film Festival. At a 2007 press conference in Los Angeles, an elderly lady proclaimed that she was suing for defamation, as the lady spy of the film is reportedly based on older her sister's actions some 70 years earlier, but nothing more came of this. Taiwan entered the film for the Oscars, but it was rejected, because it did not have enough Taiwanese nationals in key positions. The film made in excess of 24 mil. $ on the North-American home video market, which would change its status to a huge hit if figured into the equation. Lee returned with Taking Woodstock (2009). Leung returned in Red Cliff/Chi bi (2008); Tang eventually in Late Autumn/Man-choo (2010). Lust, Caution is fresh at 73 % with a 6.7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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