Lust, Caution

Lust, Caution aka "Se, jie" aka 色，戒 (Ang Lee, 2007) Despite its NC-17 rating, Lust, Caution is a spy thriller, not a sex film (the "NC" rating was created to separate films of merit that had explicit sexual content from the porn-dominated "X" rating, but it doesn't seem to have translated for mainstream audiences). 

And yet, until later, it's not exactly a spy film, either. It involves infiltration and spying and deception with a means towards assassination, but the activities are not conducted by any government organization (at least not initially), but by activists against an organization. The differences and particulars are minute, as subterfuge and manipulation are the weapons—this could be the "Impossible Missions Force" at work.

If not that infiltrators are amateurs who might be considered just playing a part with severe delusions of grandeur.

It is 1938, and a group of drama students in Japanese occupied Hong-Kong put on a patriotic play that raises donations for the resistance. But the play's director ("Typical director," says one of the actors, "he never listens to anyone else.") decides it's not enough to raise money—a relative of his has discovered his employer is a Chinese collaborator, and the student troupe, in a surge of patriotism (and drunkenness) vow to assassinate the man, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). 

They set up an elaborate ruse insinuating two of the troupe as prominent business-people and over shopping trips and mah-jongg games befriend Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen). Before long, the smartest and most gifted of the actors, Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) has caught Yee's eye, and makes plans to set him up for the kill.

Despite spending hours at the movie theaters watching Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant movies (Lee uses them specifically), she would have saved herself a lot of grief if she'd seen the only movie the two starred in together, Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946)." Spying is probably the world's second oldest profession, seeing how inexorably linked it is with the first. In Notorious, Bergman's floozy socialite is used by intelligence services to infiltrate a Nazi cell by playing on the affections of one of its leaders. She's a honey trap, using her target's weakness for her as a weapon. Her superiors (in all matters, save moral) are only too willing to let Bergman's character prostitute herself for their ends. And like Louis Calhern and his hypocritical Notorious cronies, the actors-playing-resisters are only too willing (while feeling somewhat guilty) to let Chia Chi seduce Yee.

The preparations come for naught, however, even though Chia Chi has managed to put Yee under her spell and he is tempted by her. Before any real seduction/assassination can take place,  Yee and his wife move back to Shanghai and the company disbands, but not before killing one of Yee's circle, who had become aware of the plan.

Move ahead four years to 1942 Shanghai where things have changed: Kuang (Leehom Wang), the leader of the drama club now works for the Nationalist Party's secret service, the Juntong, and Mr. Yee is now head of the secret police, whose job is to eliminate Chinese resisters and members of the party—known as the KMT. Things have changed but, when Kuang encounters Chia that old plan resurfaces and with the Juntong's blessing, Kuang begins the process anew—upgraded with weapons training and being given a suicide pill if she is discovered—with the stakes now dangerously higher.

Chia Chi meets with Yang—who remembers her as "Mrs. Mai," her role in the initial attempt—and Yee, still smitten with the woman, falls for the plot. Discreet meals become clandestine meetings, schedules re-shuffled, sex initiated—first roughly, crudely and Yee is shamed by Chia's outrage and hurt, then more intimate, considerate—but Chia finds the details of arranging the assassination challenging, not only for the stalling of the KMT "for strategic reasons," but because she is starting to have feelings for Yee and she wants the assignment over, done with. She is starting to fall into dangerous ground, where, though she may betray her body, her mask of subterfuge is at risk and her core emotions may be exposed and threatened. The lie is becoming real and her initial sense of purpose and her love of self and country (in the larger scheme of things) may be compromised.

But this is where the drama is. Lust, Caution was attacked by some for its "plodding" pace (its far subtler than Hitchcock and the unsubtle sex is distracting) and for its contained emotions (it is a spy film, after all), but it deals with masquerades and the subjugation of self for appearance, something that everybody knows and buys into as a matter of course, especially in this sub-set of thrillers. But, in a game of manipulation, hearts can't be worn on sleeves and deception is a strategy of truth suppressed and artifice as shell. For Lee, its another of his "repression" films, be it Sense and Sensibility or Hulk or Brokeback Mountain where the Id's fight is the prominent conflict on-screen.

As far as spies are concerned, this is the very well-plowed field that John le Carré has toiled in for years, where the loyalty of the heart betrays loyalty to duty or country. Intimacy creates allegiance. Consideration creates confusion. Depending what side of the War (Cold or Hot) you situate the tale, it is a Triumph of the Will for good or bad. Do you betray the mission or do you betray yourself? The trail of the heart leads to rapture or an early grave.

Lust, Caution has been unfairly neglected as a great work, with accusations of more emphasis being paid on the key players to the detriment of the historical context (and the stakes involved that would lead a woman to such actions—one hesitates to say it, given political turmoil's costs, but in a tale of the Soul, it's nearly as dismissible as a McGuffin), and for its sexual content—which amounts to five minutes of the film's 2 1/2 hour length (in its unexpurgated form)—and for which, as a result, actress Wei Tang experienced a professional black-listing (but not Tony Leung, interestingly but not surprisingly) despite a truly great dramatic performance. These are small and smallish arguments. Looking at the larger picture, Lust, Caution slots in so well with both the intricacies of the spy genre and Lee's ouvre, and one day, one hopes it might be re-discovered as a highlight of both lists.

Ciang Chee realizes her friends have no problems prostituting her.