Lust, Caution Review

Ang Lee has quickly become one of the most acclaimed directors in the world. With Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, he garnered many awards including the Best Director award at the 78th Academy Awards.

His newest film, Lust, Caution, is set in 1940s Hong Kong during the Japanese occupation of World War II. A young girl(Tang Wei) and her classmates decide to set up their own private resistance and begin to train her to seduce a top Japanese recruiter named Yee in order to lure him into the public so he can be killed.

That sounds like a great plot, right?

Well, too bad it wad COMPLETELY STOLEN. Here is a plot synopsis of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book, a movie I listed in my Top 10 Movies You May Have Missed:

After her family is murdered in a Nazi raid, a young Jewish woman joins the Dutch resistance, disguises herself, trains herself to seduce a top Gestapo official in order to find out the reason behind her family's excecution.

I really have a problem with this. Both movies feature the main character falling in love with the official. Both movies also have them paired up with a member in the resistence for whom they also share feelings. Both movies feature copius nudity. Both movies have tragic deaths and shocking revelations.

The difference is that Lust Caution is boring as a snail, while Black Book is lush, vibrant, and actually sexy. Lust Caution is needlessly loooooooong. The character's relationships are shallow and unfeeling. The sex scenes do nothing that porn wouldn't, so the "romance" is completely unbelievable. I didn't understand the motivations behind Wei's charcter other than she wants to "fit in". We don't have a reason as to why she fell in love(or lust) with Mr. Yee.

But I think it has to do with the fact that this movie is about the dangers of lust, while Black Book is more of a revenge driven film.

Both movies have great acting and great cinematography, but Black Book has everything regarding the characters and the fluidity of the plot that Lust Caution never achieves. It is so much more sensual and sexy, something Verhoeven has always been able to do. Lee's films are just too self-insistent for their own good.

If you see Lust, Caution, see Black Book first please. Maybe you'll like the more impersonal, dramatic touch that Lee's film has opposed to the gritty and slightly cheesy feel that Verhoeven employs.

62/100