Lust, Caution

Directed by: Ang Lee

With: Tony Leung, Tang Wei

I am back after a pretty long hiatus on the blogosphere. I haven’t been watching many films lately other than the ones I carried with me from India. An association in my school organises film shows every Wednesday but unfortunately I have a class at around the same time.

So today I’m here to write about Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution”, a film that created a lot of controversy in China because of its highly erotic scenes. The DVD was lent to me by one of my Chinese friends who loves the film and later I had a discussion about it with another Chinese friend who hated it so I had two diverging views about the film too.

The film is takes off in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong of 1938. A young student, Wong Chia-Chi is recruited by a group of revolutionary students to get close to Mr. Yee, a politician who has “sold out” to the Japanese and eliminate him. The mission fails horribly and the group is forced to disband.

Three years later in Shanghai, Wong is told to take up again the mission. As a fictional Mrs. Mai, Wong re-enters Yee’s life and soon, their relationship becomes more complex than the young woman had ever thought. Wong finds herself being attracted towards the sadist Yee and finds herself in a dilemma: losing the man by letting him be killed by the revolutionaries or giving up her patriotic mission to save him.

What is extraordinary about the film is the way the director of “Brokeback Mountain” has depicted the complex relationship between Wong and Yee through some very disturbing erotic scenes. Yee is clearly into bondage and S&M: he forces himself on Wong, tears off her clothes and makes violent love (?) to her. Eventually (and we see this through those very lovemaking scenes), he softens up to her and according to me, falls in love with her. Her feelings for him, on the other had, seem to me much more complex. Strangely, when Yee leaves her all bruised and battered and humiliated on a bed after their first time, we see a faint smile appear on her face. And then begins the downward spiral and Wong ultimately finds herself becoming Yee’s sex-slave. She is also obviously in love with her because she contemplates giving up on her revolutionary friends to save Yee’s life.

But this to me poses a problem: why does she fall in love with a man as cruel and sadist as Yee? Ang Lee does not answer this question very well. As I said before I had a little discussion about this with a Chinese friend who told me that the film is based on a novel which is in turn based on the life of a real revolutionary. For the Chinese, this revolutionary is a “heroine” and the novel depicted the relationship between her and Yee as love that surpasses that of the flesh. She felt that the movie depicted Wong as simply a sex-slave of Mr. Yee which is insulting to the memory of this heroine. Apparently, the actress was therefore banned in China. The erotic scenes were censored too.

I for one don’t know what to make of the movie. It is definitely riveting and there are several nail-biting moments. But the relationship between Yee and Wong remains a little too ambiguous and superficial. Though, it might just be due to my limited comprehension of the film!

PS: There is a tiny cameo by Anupam Kher too who is shown as a jeweller running a shop called Chandani Chowk!:)

PPS: Talked to another Chinese friend about it today. She said that the film reflects a very Chinese aspect of life: the road to a woman’s heart is through the vagina! :)