looking at lust / caution

I finally got around to watching Ang Lee's "lust / caution" on DVD; it's not easy to find an uninterrupted 2.5 hr block to watch a movie these days w/ a hyper-active 7-month-old baby. The movie is a fairly faithful reproduction of the novella by Eileen Chang; many of the memorable scenes from the written work, like the opening majong smoky conversation, the celebratory tram ride into wee hours in the morning after a triumphant theatrical debut,the cafe phone call when the lead character made a cautionary phone call, closely matched the imagery Chang conjured in my head after I succumbed to her 1940's Shanghai enclave. The casting of Tang Wei was dead on; the transformation from a naive but passionate university student to a cynical, masochistic underground worker was painfully convincing, and Tony Leung, a master of minimalist acting for decades, was frighteningly powerful w/ his effusive eyes.

There were a few surprises as well. Tony's character came out more sadistic and violent that I had anticipated; I was expecting a strange and unusual relationship but in a drastically different sense: one where the psychological battle of love/hate and the mental struggle of trust/distrust were the central focus. The gang killing of the HK mole was added with great effect; the stalk contrast of naivety of student and beast-like nature of man's survival instinct was in grand display. Though I understand sexual perversion was a theme in the story, I thought the sex scenes were excessive, and as far as story telling is concerned, there must be more effective and heterogeneous means of accomplishing the same goal. Finally, I would much prefer the ending in the novella, where the traitor returned to his wife's majong table and his wife in passing casually mentioned the departure of the seductress to HK to her female companions, revealing her knowledge in the dirty business all along, sending an icy chill down the traitor' spine.

Overall, the duality of magnificence and apocalypse in occupied Shanghai and the fatalistic psyche of the fallen Chinese people were created artfully with great attention to details. It is definitely a story worth telling and one told w/ passion and compassion. 8/10 for me.