Lust, Caution
Encyclopedia
Lust, Caution is an 2007 Chinese espionage thriller film directed by Ang Lee
, based on the novella of the same name
published in 1950 by Chinese author Eileen Chang
. The story is mostly set in Hong Kong in 1938 and in Shanghai in 1942, when it was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army
and ruled by the puppet government
led by Wang Jingwei
. It depicts a group of Chinese university students from the Lingnan University
who plot to assassinate a high-ranking special agent
and recruiter
of the puppet government using an attractive young woman to lure him into a trap.
With this film, Lee won for the second time the Golden Lion
Award at the Venice Film Festival
, the first being with Brokeback Mountain
. The film adaptation
and the story are loosely based on events that took place during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. The film's explicit sex scenes resulted in the film being rated NC-17 in the United States.
) is sitting in a café in a posh neighbourhood. When she makes a call to a man, her seemingly innocuous dialogues are coded signals that prompts a cell of young resistance agents to load their weapons and spring into action.
to the events in 1938 that led up to the transformation of the shy, inexperienced university student Wong Chia Chi into the glamorously-dressed and seemingly well-to-do Mrs. Mak, her cover role in the Chinese resistance against Japanese invasion. During the Second Sino-Japanese War
, Chia Chi had been left behind in China by her father, who is going to re-marry in the United Kingdom. Chia Chi flees from Shanghai to Hong Kong and attends her first year at Lingnan University
. A male student named Kuang Yu Min (Leehom Wang) invites her to join his patriotic drama club. Chia Chi becomes a lead actress in the club, inspiring both her audience and her new-found friend Kuang.
Fired up from the drama troupe's patriotic plays, Kuang urges the group to make a more concrete contribution to the war against Japan. He devises a plan to assassinate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), who is a special agent
and recruiter
of the puppet government set up by the Japanese Government in China. The beautiful Chia Chi is chosen to take on the undercover role of Mrs Mak, the elegant wife of the owner of a Hong Kong based trading company, she insinuates herself in the social circle of Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen
). She catches the eye of Mr. Yee and tries to lure him into a location where he can be assassinated. Yee is attracted to Chia Chi and once steps very close to the trap but withdraws at the last minute. It comes to light that Chia Chi is still a virgin, and she reluctantly consents to sleeping with Liang Jun-Sheng, another student involved in the plot to kill Mr. Yee, in order to play into her role as a married woman if she were to sleep with Mr. Yee. It is obvious that Kuang is upset by this, but nevertheless agrees to the two "practicing" every following night. But not long after that, Mr. and Mrs. Yee move back to Shanghai all of a sudden, leaving the students with no further chance to complete their assassination plan. With Yee gone, the university students believe there is no need to maintain the facade and therefore pack up and clean up the rented apartment. An armed subordinate of Yee turns up in their apartment unannounced and finds their sudden packing very suspicious. Spotting their university tanktops, the subordinate realises that "Mr. & Mrs. Mak" are not who they claim they are. The university students kill the subordinate and are forced to go into hiding afterward.
, but over the weeks that follow their sexual relationship becomes very passionate and deeply emotional, but also very conflicted for both of them, especially for Chia Chi, who is setting her lover up for assassination.
When Chia Chi reports to her superior officer in the KMT, she exhorts him to carry out the assassination soon, so that she will not have to continue her sexual liaisons with the brutal Yee, but the officer argues that the assassination needs to be delayed for strategic reasons. Chia Chi describes the inhuman emotional conflict she is in, on one hand sexually and emotionally bound to Mr. Yee and on the other hand part of a plot to kill him.
When Mr. Yee sends Chia Chi to a jewelry store with a sealed envelope, she is surprised to discover that he has arranged for a large and extremely rare six carat pink diamond for her, to be mounted in a ring. This provides the Chinese resistance with a chance to get at Mr. Yee when he is not accompanied by his bodyguards.
The next time Chia Chi and Mr. Yee meet, she asks him to go to the jewellery store with her to collect the diamond ring. As they enter the shop, she notices several resistance agents waiting to spring the trap. But, after first demurring, when she puts on the magnificent ring, and experiences Mr. Yee's love for her, she is overcome by emotion and breaks down and urges him twice to "Go, now." Mr. Yee realizes her meaning, runs out of the shop and is rushed away by his driver, and escapes the assassination attempt. By the end of the day most of the resistance group including Kuang and Chia Chi herself are captured. It is revealed that Mr. Yee's deputy has been aware of the resistance cell, but did not inform Mr. Yee, both because of Mr. Yee's relationship with Chia Chi and because the deputy had hoped to use this opportunity to catch the resistance cell leader. Mr. Yee, emotionally in turmoil, signs their death warrants and the resistance group members, including Chia Chi, are led out to a quarry and executed. In the last scene, Mr. Yee sits on Chia Chi's empty bed in the family guest room, and informs his wife that their house guest is gone, and that she should not ask any questions.
, where it won the Golden Lion
, the second such award for Ang Lee. It was released in U.S. theaters on September 28, 2007, where it was rated NC-17 by the Motion Picture Association of America
due to graphic sexual content. Lee stated that he would make no changes to attempt to get an R rating
. After the movie's premiere, director Ang Lee was displeased that Chinese news media (including those from Taiwan) had greatly emphasized the sex scenes in the movie. The version released in the People's Republic of China was cut by about seven minutes (by the director himself) to make it suitable for younger audiences, since China has no rating system. The version released in Malaysia was approved by the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia without alterations and was rated 18SX—those under 18 are barred from the cinema. His earlier film Brokeback Mountain
is banned in Malaysia.
The film swept the 2007 Golden Horse Awards, winning seven including Best Actor, Best Feature Film and Best Director.
44th Golden Horse Awards
27th Hong Kong Film Awards
65th Golden Globe Awards
61st British Academy Film Awards
2nd Asian Film Awards
Nominated: Best Film
Nominated: Best Actress (Tang Wei)
Nominated: Best Composer (Alexandre Desplat)
Nominated: Best Director (Ang Lee)
Nominated: Best Screenwriter (Wang Hui-Ling and James Schamus
)
The film was nominated for the Best Film in a Foreign Language BAFTA in 2008.
Ang Lee was awarded Freedom of Expression award at the ShoWest convention for his decision to release the film in the United States uncut, rather than editing the film to avoid the MPAA's NC-17 rating.
. The ten minutes of sex scenes were considered by Lee to be critical to the story and reportedly took 100 hours to shoot.
In a number of countries, notably the People's Republic of China and (initially) Singapore, many of the sex scenes had to be cut before the film could be released. In Singapore, while the producers initially released a cut version which was given an NC-16 rating, a public outcry on the perceived "immaturity" of Singaporean audiences compared to their Hong Kong and Taiwan counterparts (the film was released uncut in Hong Kong and Taiwan) prompted the producers to eventually release the uncut version, this time with a higher R-21 rating. The film is rated R18 and it contains violence and sex scenes and it was released uncut in New Zealand.
The following scenes were cut from the mainland China version:
and River Road Productions, and Chinese companies Shanghai Film Group Corporation
and Haishang Films and the Taiwanese Hai Sheng Film Production Company. The director is Ang Lee, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and the actors/actresses are from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as well as the United States. It was shot in Shanghai, the neighboring province of Zhejiang
, Hong Kong (at Hong Kong University), and some locations in Penang
and Ipoh
in Malaysia used as 1930s/1940s Hong Kong.
Originally, the film's country was identified as "China-USA" by the organizers of the Venice Film Festival
, but after a complaint from Ang Lee's office, it was changed to "Taiwan". However, a few days later, the Venice Film Festival changed the film to "USA-China-Taiwan, China" on its official schedule. When the film premiered at the event, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council
protested the Venice event's use of "Taiwan, China" to identify films from the island and blamed China for the move.
After the film's premiere, Taiwan submitted the film as its Best Foreign Film Oscar entry. However, the Oscars asked Taiwan to withdraw the film because some key crew members were not locals. Oscars spokeswoman Teni Melidonian said in an e-mail organizers refused to accept the film because "an insufficient number of Taiwanese participated in the production of the film," violating a rule that requires foreign countries to certify their locals "exercised artistic control" over their submission.
(she alleges that the characters were renamed to Wang Jiazhi and Mr. Yee in the movie). Taiwan's investigation bureau confirmed that Zheng Pingru failed to kill Ding Mocun because her gun jammed, rather than developing a romantic relationship with the assassin's target. Director Ang Lee maintains that Eileen Chang wrote the original short story as fiction.
, 72% of all critics gave the film positive reviews, the consensus said "Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a tense, sensual and beautifully-shot espionage film", while scoring 58% among Rotten Tomatoes-designated "Top Critics". On Metacritic
, the film had an average score of 61 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.
Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News named it the 5th best film of 2007. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
named it the 6th best film of 2007.
The Chinese press gave generally positive reviews. In analyzing how successful Lee's film was as an adaptation of Eileen Chang's short story, book critic Leo Lee Ou-fan (李歐梵) wrote in Muse
Magazine that he 'found [his] loyalties divided between Eileen Chang and Ang Lee. But after three viewings of the film, I have finally opted for Lee because deep down I believe in film magic which can sometimes displace textual fidelity.' In an earlier issue of Muse
however, film critic Perry Lam had criticized Lee's direction: 'in his eagerness to make the movie appealing to a mass audience, Lee seems guilty of sentimentalism.' Sentimental or not, there is certainly a palpable trace of Lee's sympathy for Chang's personal love life, “It was hard for me to live in Eileen Chang’s world...There are days I hated her for it. It’s so sad, so tragic. But you realize there’s a shortage of love in her life: romantic love, family love.” He added, “This is the story of what killed love for her.”
) that the Hong Kong sequences in the film set in the late 1930s include "London taxis" of two types (FX3
, FX4
) that were only manufactured onwards from 1948 and 1958 respectively.
In Hong Kong, where it played in its entirety, Lust, Caution grossed US$6,249,342 (approximately $48 million HKD) despite being saddled with a restrictive "Category III" rating (the Hong Kong equivalent of NC-17). It was the territory's biggest-grossing Chinese language film of the year, and third biggest overall (behind only Spider-Man 3
and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
).
The film was also a huge success in China, despite playing only in a heavily-edited version. It grossed US$17,109,185, making it the country's sixth highest-grossing film of 2007 and third highest-grossing domestic production.
In North America, the NC-17 rating which Lust, Caution received is traditionally perceived as a box office "kiss-of-death". In its opening weekend in one U.S. theatre, it grossed $63,918. Expanding to seventeen venues the next week, its per-screen average was $21,341, before cooling down to $4,639 at 125 screens. Never playing at more than 143 theatres in its entire U.S. run, it eventually grossed $4,604,982. As of August 15, 2008, it was the fifth highest-grossing NC-17 production in North America. Focus Features
was very satisfied with the United States release of this film.
Worldwide, Lust, Caution grossed $67,091,915.
This film has generated more than $24 million from its DVD sales and rentals in the United States, an impressive result for a film that only grossed $4.6 million in limited theatrical release in the United States.
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
, based on the novella of the same name
Lust, Caution
Lust, Caution is an 2007 Chinese espionage thriller film directed by Ang Lee, based on the novella of the same name published in 1950 by Chinese author Eileen Chang. The story is mostly set in Hong Kong in 1938 and in Shanghai in 1942, when it was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army and ruled by...
published in 1950 by Chinese author Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang was a Chinese writer. Her most famous works include Lust, Caution and Love in a Fallen City....
. The story is mostly set in Hong Kong in 1938 and in Shanghai in 1942, when it was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...
and ruled by the puppet government
Wang Jingwei Government
In March 1940 a puppet government led by Wang Jingwei was established in the Republic of China under the protection of the Empire of Japan. The regime officially called itself the Republic of China and its government the Reorganized National Government of China...
led by Wang Jingwei
Wang Jingwei
Wang Jingwei , alternate name Wang Zhaoming, was a Chinese politician. He was initially known as a member of the left wing of the Kuomintang , but later became increasingly anti-Communist after his efforts to collaborate with the CCP ended in political failure...
. It depicts a group of Chinese university students from the Lingnan University
Lingnan University (Hong Kong)
The Lingnan University is a public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. It was granted full university status on 30 July 1999.The Lingnan University administration believes that it provides students with a quality education distinguished by the best liberal arts tradition from both East and West...
who plot to assassinate a high-ranking special agent
Special agent
Special agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
and recruiter
Recruiter
A recruiter is someone engaging in recruitment, or the solicitation of individuals to fill jobs or positions within a corporation, nonprofit organization, sports team, the military, etc. Recruiters may work within an organization's human resources department or on an outsourced basis...
of the puppet government using an attractive young woman to lure him into a trap.
With this film, Lee won for the second time the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
Award at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, the first being with Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
. The film adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
and the story are loosely based on events that took place during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. The film's explicit sex scenes resulted in the film being rated NC-17 in the United States.
Plot
In the Japanese-occupied Shanghai in the 1940s, a well-dressed, attractive young Chinese woman named "Mrs. Mak" (Tang WeiTang Wei
Tang Wei is a Chinese actress. She rose to prominence for her appearance in Lust, Caution.-1979–2006: Early life and beginnings:...
) is sitting in a café in a posh neighbourhood. When she makes a call to a man, her seemingly innocuous dialogues are coded signals that prompts a cell of young resistance agents to load their weapons and spring into action.
Hong Kong 1938
The film then flashes back in timeFlashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to the events in 1938 that led up to the transformation of the shy, inexperienced university student Wong Chia Chi into the glamorously-dressed and seemingly well-to-do Mrs. Mak, her cover role in the Chinese resistance against Japanese invasion. During the Second Sino-Japanese War
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
, Chia Chi had been left behind in China by her father, who is going to re-marry in the United Kingdom. Chia Chi flees from Shanghai to Hong Kong and attends her first year at Lingnan University
Lingnan University (Hong Kong)
The Lingnan University is a public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. It was granted full university status on 30 July 1999.The Lingnan University administration believes that it provides students with a quality education distinguished by the best liberal arts tradition from both East and West...
. A male student named Kuang Yu Min (Leehom Wang) invites her to join his patriotic drama club. Chia Chi becomes a lead actress in the club, inspiring both her audience and her new-found friend Kuang.
Fired up from the drama troupe's patriotic plays, Kuang urges the group to make a more concrete contribution to the war against Japan. He devises a plan to assassinate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), who is a special agent
Special agent
Special agent is usually the title for a detective or investigator for a state, county, municipal, federal or tribal government. An agent is a worker for any federal agency, and a secret agent is one who works for an intelligence agency....
and recruiter
Recruiter
A recruiter is someone engaging in recruitment, or the solicitation of individuals to fill jobs or positions within a corporation, nonprofit organization, sports team, the military, etc. Recruiters may work within an organization's human resources department or on an outsourced basis...
of the puppet government set up by the Japanese Government in China. The beautiful Chia Chi is chosen to take on the undercover role of Mrs Mak, the elegant wife of the owner of a Hong Kong based trading company, she insinuates herself in the social circle of Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen
Joan Chen
Joan Chong Chen is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter and film producer. She became famous in China for her performance in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor...
). She catches the eye of Mr. Yee and tries to lure him into a location where he can be assassinated. Yee is attracted to Chia Chi and once steps very close to the trap but withdraws at the last minute. It comes to light that Chia Chi is still a virgin, and she reluctantly consents to sleeping with Liang Jun-Sheng, another student involved in the plot to kill Mr. Yee, in order to play into her role as a married woman if she were to sleep with Mr. Yee. It is obvious that Kuang is upset by this, but nevertheless agrees to the two "practicing" every following night. But not long after that, Mr. and Mrs. Yee move back to Shanghai all of a sudden, leaving the students with no further chance to complete their assassination plan. With Yee gone, the university students believe there is no need to maintain the facade and therefore pack up and clean up the rented apartment. An armed subordinate of Yee turns up in their apartment unannounced and finds their sudden packing very suspicious. Spotting their university tanktops, the subordinate realises that "Mr. & Mrs. Mak" are not who they claim they are. The university students kill the subordinate and are forced to go into hiding afterward.
Shanghai, 1942
In Shanghai, three years later, Chia Chi again encounters Kuang, who is now an undercover agent of the KMT, which is seeking to overturn the Japanese occupation force and their puppet government. He enlists her into a renewed assassination plan to kill Yee. By this time, Mr. Yee has become the head of secret police department under the puppet government and is responsible for capturing and executing resistance agents who are working for the KMT. Eventually, Chia Chi becomes the mistress of Mr. Yee. During their first encounter Yee is sadistic and violent as he gets his anal sexAnal sex
Anal sex is the sex act in which the penis is inserted into the anus of a sexual partner. The term can also include other sexual acts involving the anus, including pegging, anilingus , fingering, and object insertion.Common misconception describes anal sex as practiced almost exclusively by gay men...
, but over the weeks that follow their sexual relationship becomes very passionate and deeply emotional, but also very conflicted for both of them, especially for Chia Chi, who is setting her lover up for assassination.
When Chia Chi reports to her superior officer in the KMT, she exhorts him to carry out the assassination soon, so that she will not have to continue her sexual liaisons with the brutal Yee, but the officer argues that the assassination needs to be delayed for strategic reasons. Chia Chi describes the inhuman emotional conflict she is in, on one hand sexually and emotionally bound to Mr. Yee and on the other hand part of a plot to kill him.
When Mr. Yee sends Chia Chi to a jewelry store with a sealed envelope, she is surprised to discover that he has arranged for a large and extremely rare six carat pink diamond for her, to be mounted in a ring. This provides the Chinese resistance with a chance to get at Mr. Yee when he is not accompanied by his bodyguards.
The next time Chia Chi and Mr. Yee meet, she asks him to go to the jewellery store with her to collect the diamond ring. As they enter the shop, she notices several resistance agents waiting to spring the trap. But, after first demurring, when she puts on the magnificent ring, and experiences Mr. Yee's love for her, she is overcome by emotion and breaks down and urges him twice to "Go, now." Mr. Yee realizes her meaning, runs out of the shop and is rushed away by his driver, and escapes the assassination attempt. By the end of the day most of the resistance group including Kuang and Chia Chi herself are captured. It is revealed that Mr. Yee's deputy has been aware of the resistance cell, but did not inform Mr. Yee, both because of Mr. Yee's relationship with Chia Chi and because the deputy had hoped to use this opportunity to catch the resistance cell leader. Mr. Yee, emotionally in turmoil, signs their death warrants and the resistance group members, including Chia Chi, are led out to a quarry and executed. In the last scene, Mr. Yee sits on Chia Chi's empty bed in the family guest room, and informs his wife that their house guest is gone, and that she should not ask any questions.
Cast
- Tang WeiTang WeiTang Wei is a Chinese actress. She rose to prominence for her appearance in Lust, Caution.-1979–2006: Early life and beginnings:...
as Wong Chia-chi/Mrs. Mak (王佳芝／麥太太) - Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Mr. Yee (易先生)
- Joan ChenJoan ChenJoan Chong Chen is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter and film producer. She became famous in China for her performance in the 1979 film Little Flower and came to international attention for her performance in the 1987 Academy Award-winning film The Last Emperor...
as Mrs. Yee (易太太) - Leehom Wang as Kuang Yumin (鄺裕民)
- Tou Chung-Hua (庹宗華) as Old Wu
- Chin Kar-lok as Assistant Officer Tsao
- Chu Chih-Ying (朱芷瑩) as Lai Xiujin (賴秀金)
- Kao Ying-hsuan (高英軒) as Huang Lei (黃磊)
- Lawrence Ko (柯宇綸) as Liang Junsheng (梁潤生)
- Johnson Yuen (阮德鏘) as Auyang Lingwen/Mr. Mak (歐陽靈文／麥先生)
- Fan Kuang-Yao (樊光耀) as Secretary Chang
- Anupam KherAnupam KherAnupam Kher is an Indian actor who has appeared in nearly 400 films and 100 plays. Though mainly appearing in Bollywood films, he has had roles in some films from other nations as well...
as Khalid Said ud-Din - Shyam Pathak as Jewellery shopkeeper
- Akiko Takeshita as Japanese Tavern Boss Lady
- Hayato Fujiki as Japanese Colonel Sato
Releases and awards
The film premiered at the Venice Film FestivalVenice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, where it won the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
, the second such award for Ang Lee. It was released in U.S. theaters on September 28, 2007, where it was rated NC-17 by the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
due to graphic sexual content. Lee stated that he would make no changes to attempt to get an R rating
R rating
R rating may refer to:*R - Motion Picture Association of America film rating system*R-value...
. After the movie's premiere, director Ang Lee was displeased that Chinese news media (including those from Taiwan) had greatly emphasized the sex scenes in the movie. The version released in the People's Republic of China was cut by about seven minutes (by the director himself) to make it suitable for younger audiences, since China has no rating system. The version released in Malaysia was approved by the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia without alterations and was rated 18SX—those under 18 are barred from the cinema. His earlier film Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
is banned in Malaysia.
The film swept the 2007 Golden Horse Awards, winning seven including Best Actor, Best Feature Film and Best Director.
44th Golden Horse Awards
- Won: Best Film
- Won: Best Director (Ang LeeAng LeeAng Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
) - Won: Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai)
- Won: Best New Performer (Tang WeiTang WeiTang Wei is a Chinese actress. She rose to prominence for her appearance in Lust, Caution.-1979–2006: Early life and beginnings:...
) - Won: Best Adapted Screenplay (Wang Hui-Ling and James SchamusJames SchamusJames Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter The Ice Storm and producer Brokeback Mountain, and is CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company whose films have included Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The...
) - Won: Best Makeup & Costume Design (Pan Lai)
- Won: Best Original Film Score (Alexandre DesplatAlexandre DesplatAlexandre Michel Gérard Desplat is a French film composer. He has received four Academy Award nominations, five BAFTA nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, winning a Golden Globe for his work on The Painted Veil in 2006, and two Grammy nominations. In 2011, Desplat won his first British...
) - Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the Year (Ang Lee)
- Nominated: Best Actress (Tang Wei)
- Nominated: Best Art Direction (Lau Sai-Wan, Pan Lai)
- Nominated: Best Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto)
- Nominated: Best Editing (Tim Squyres)
27th Hong Kong Film Awards
27th Hong Kong Film Awards
Ceremony for the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards was held on 14 April 2008 in the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and hosted by Sandra Ng, Carol Cheng and Sammi Cheng. Winners in nineteen categories were unveiled, with film The Warlords being the year's biggest winner.The nominees were announced on 2 February...
- Won: Best Asian Film (Ang Lee)
65th Golden Globe Awards
65th Golden Globe Awards
The 65th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television of 2007, were scheduled to be presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on January 13, 2008...
- Nominated: Best Foreign Film
61st British Academy Film Awards
61st British Academy Film Awards
The 61st British Academy Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts took place on 10 February 2008, and honoured the best films of 2007.Joe Wright's Atonement won the award for Best Film...
- Nominated: Best Costume Design (Pan Lai)
- Nominated: Best Foreign Film (Ang Lee, James Schamus, William Kong)
- Nominated: Rising Star Award (Tang Wei)
2nd Asian Film Awards
2nd Asian Film Awards
The 2nd Asian Film Awards were given in a ceremony on 17 March 2008 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre as part of the Hong Kong International Film Festival....
James Schamus
James Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter The Ice Storm and producer Brokeback Mountain, and is CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company whose films have included Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The...
)
The film was nominated for the Best Film in a Foreign Language BAFTA in 2008.
Ang Lee was awarded Freedom of Expression award at the ShoWest convention for his decision to release the film in the United States uncut, rather than editing the film to avoid the MPAA's NC-17 rating.
Censorship
In its uncut form, Lust, Caution features three episodes of graphic sex, with full-frontal nudityNudity
Nudity is the state of wearing no clothing. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic. The amount of clothing worn depends on functional considerations and social considerations...
. The ten minutes of sex scenes were considered by Lee to be critical to the story and reportedly took 100 hours to shoot.
In a number of countries, notably the People's Republic of China and (initially) Singapore, many of the sex scenes had to be cut before the film could be released. In Singapore, while the producers initially released a cut version which was given an NC-16 rating, a public outcry on the perceived "immaturity" of Singaporean audiences compared to their Hong Kong and Taiwan counterparts (the film was released uncut in Hong Kong and Taiwan) prompted the producers to eventually release the uncut version, this time with a higher R-21 rating. The film is rated R18 and it contains violence and sex scenes and it was released uncut in New Zealand.
The following scenes were cut from the mainland China version:
- Wong Chia Chi walking past dead refugeeRefugeeA refugee is a person who outside her country of origin or habitual residence because she has suffered persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because she is a member of a persecuted 'social group'. Such a person may be referred to as an 'asylum seeker' until...
s in the street - StabbingStabbingA stabbing is penetration with a sharp or pointed object at close range. Stab connotes purposeful action, as by an assassin or murderer, but it is also possible to accidentally stab oneself or others.Stabbing differs from slashing or cutting in that the motion of the object used in a stabbing...
scene cut to only one knife stab - Two of the sex scenes featuring the student, and three featuring Mr. Yee)
- A nude shot of Wong Chia Chi at window
- Wong Chia Chi in bed after first sex scene with Mr. Yee
- Dialogue modified in diamond ring scene so that Wong Chia Chi did not betray the resistance by warning Mr. Yee.
Country of production
The film was co-produced by the American companies Focus FeaturesFocus Features
Focus Features is the art house films division of NBC Universal's Universal Pictures, and acts as both a producer and distributor for its own films and a distributor for foreign films....
and River Road Productions, and Chinese companies Shanghai Film Group Corporation
Shanghai Film Group Corporation
Shanghai Film Group Corporation is a film, animation and documentary production company under the Shanghai Media & Entertainment Group conglomerate...
and Haishang Films and the Taiwanese Hai Sheng Film Production Company. The director is Ang Lee, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and the actors/actresses are from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as well as the United States. It was shot in Shanghai, the neighboring province of Zhejiang
Zhejiang
Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...
, Hong Kong (at Hong Kong University), and some locations in Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...
and Ipoh
Ipoh
Ipoh is the capital city of Perak state, Malaysia. It is approximately 200 km north of Kuala Lumpur on the North-South Expressway....
in Malaysia used as 1930s/1940s Hong Kong.
Originally, the film's country was identified as "China-USA" by the organizers of the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, but after a complaint from Ang Lee's office, it was changed to "Taiwan". However, a few days later, the Venice Film Festival changed the film to "USA-China-Taiwan, China" on its official schedule. When the film premiered at the event, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council
Mainland Affairs Council
The Mainland Affairs Council is a cabinet-level administrative agency under the Executive Yuan of the Republic of China. The MAC is responsible for the planning, development, and implementation of policies between the Free Area of the Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan, and the People's...
protested the Venice event's use of "Taiwan, China" to identify films from the island and blamed China for the move.
After the film's premiere, Taiwan submitted the film as its Best Foreign Film Oscar entry. However, the Oscars asked Taiwan to withdraw the film because some key crew members were not locals. Oscars spokeswoman Teni Melidonian said in an e-mail organizers refused to accept the film because "an insufficient number of Taiwanese participated in the production of the film," violating a rule that requires foreign countries to certify their locals "exercised artistic control" over their submission.
Defamation
On September 13, 2007, an elderly lady, Zheng Tianru, staged a press conference in Los Angeles, claiming that the movie was about real-life events that happened in World War II, and wrongfully portrayed her older sister, Zheng Pingru, as a promiscuous secret agent who seduced and eventually fell in love with the assassination target Ding MocunDing Mocun
Ding Mocun , former name Ding Lesheng , was a politician of the Republic of China.Born in Changde, Hunan Province, China, Ding served as the Minister of Society in the Wang Jingwei Government, and the governor of Zhejiang. On July 5, 1947, Ding was executed in a prison in Suzhou, Republic of China....
(she alleges that the characters were renamed to Wang Jiazhi and Mr. Yee in the movie). Taiwan's investigation bureau confirmed that Zheng Pingru failed to kill Ding Mocun because her gun jammed, rather than developing a romantic relationship with the assassin's target. Director Ang Lee maintains that Eileen Chang wrote the original short story as fiction.
Critical reception
As of March 31, 2011, on the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 72% of all critics gave the film positive reviews, the consensus said "Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is a tense, sensual and beautifully-shot espionage film", while scoring 58% among Rotten Tomatoes-designated "Top Critics". On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, the film had an average score of 61 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.
Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News named it the 5th best film of 2007. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
named it the 6th best film of 2007.
The Chinese press gave generally positive reviews. In analyzing how successful Lee's film was as an adaptation of Eileen Chang's short story, book critic Leo Lee Ou-fan (李歐梵) wrote in Muse
Muse (Hong Kong Magazine)
Muse is a bilingual Hong Kong-based multimedia publisher specializing in content related to Hong Kong's art and culture scene.. Until December 2010, Muse published an award-winning monthly arts and culture magazine...
Magazine that he 'found [his] loyalties divided between Eileen Chang and Ang Lee. But after three viewings of the film, I have finally opted for Lee because deep down I believe in film magic which can sometimes displace textual fidelity.' In an earlier issue of Muse
Muse (Hong Kong Magazine)
Muse is a bilingual Hong Kong-based multimedia publisher specializing in content related to Hong Kong's art and culture scene.. Until December 2010, Muse published an award-winning monthly arts and culture magazine...
however, film critic Perry Lam had criticized Lee's direction: 'in his eagerness to make the movie appealing to a mass audience, Lee seems guilty of sentimentalism.' Sentimental or not, there is certainly a palpable trace of Lee's sympathy for Chang's personal love life, “It was hard for me to live in Eileen Chang’s world...There are days I hated her for it. It’s so sad, so tragic. But you realize there’s a shortage of love in her life: romantic love, family love.” He added, “This is the story of what killed love for her.”
Anachronisms
It has been noted by critics (including Bryan AppleyardBryan Appleyard
Bryan Appleyard is a British journalist and author.- Career :Appleyard was educated at Bolton School and King’s College, Cambridge and after graduating with a degree in English, he became Financial News Editor and Deputy Arts Editor from 1976 to 1984 at The Times. Subsequently he became a...
) that the Hong Kong sequences in the film set in the late 1930s include "London taxis" of two types (FX3
Austin FX3
The Austin FX3 was a taxicab designed to comply with the Metropolitan Police Conditions of Fitness for London taxicabs, but was used in other towns and cities in the United Kingdom...
, FX4
Austin FX4
The FX4 is the classic Black Cab. While the majority are black, there is in fact no requirement for them, or indeed any other make of London taxi to be black. Over the years, the FX4 has been sold under a number of different makers' names.-Design and launch:...
) that were only manufactured onwards from 1948 and 1958 respectively.
Box office
Lust, Caution was produced on a budget of approximately $15 million.In Hong Kong, where it played in its entirety, Lust, Caution grossed US$6,249,342 (approximately $48 million HKD) despite being saddled with a restrictive "Category III" rating (the Hong Kong equivalent of NC-17). It was the territory's biggest-grossing Chinese language film of the year, and third biggest overall (behind only Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3
Spider-Man 3 is a 2007 American superhero film written and directed by Sam Raimi, with a screenplay by Ivan Raimi and Alvin Sargent. It is the third film in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Spider-Man...
and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, and was published on 21 June 2003 by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic in the United States, and Raincoast in Canada...
).
The film was also a huge success in China, despite playing only in a heavily-edited version. It grossed US$17,109,185, making it the country's sixth highest-grossing film of 2007 and third highest-grossing domestic production.
In North America, the NC-17 rating which Lust, Caution received is traditionally perceived as a box office "kiss-of-death". In its opening weekend in one U.S. theatre, it grossed $63,918. Expanding to seventeen venues the next week, its per-screen average was $21,341, before cooling down to $4,639 at 125 screens. Never playing at more than 143 theatres in its entire U.S. run, it eventually grossed $4,604,982. As of August 15, 2008, it was the fifth highest-grossing NC-17 production in North America. Focus Features
Focus Features
Focus Features is the art house films division of NBC Universal's Universal Pictures, and acts as both a producer and distributor for its own films and a distributor for foreign films....
was very satisfied with the United States release of this film.
Worldwide, Lust, Caution grossed $67,091,915.
Home media
In the United States, two DVD versions of this film were released: the original NC-17 version and the censored R-rated version.This film has generated more than $24 million from its DVD sales and rentals in the United States, an impressive result for a film that only grossed $4.6 million in limited theatrical release in the United States.