The whys of Lust and love

By Clarissa Oon
Publisher:The Straits Times - Publication Date: 06-12-2007

The Lee Ang film Lust, Caution has become the most talked-about film in China, with much of the debate raging around the wartime Chinese official and Japanese agent played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai.

The film has been accused by some quarters of glamorising a traitor who colluded with invading Japanese forces during World War II, a charge fuelled by its casting of one of Asia's sexiest actors in that pivotal role.

While the Eileen Chang short story on which the film is based had once been criticised for being too sympathetic to such hanjian, or 'Chinese traitors', some of her fans have accused director Lee of romanticising a character described in the original story as a short man with a receding hairline and a 'narrowed, almost rat-like tip' of a nose.

The film, however, has more than its share of defenders and champions in the Chinese-speaking world.

Indeed, one could say that the film's power lies in the way it unfolds as a psychological and sexual thriller. It is a 'whydunit' where the compelling mysteries of its characters' decisions - and its director's choices - linger long after the credits roll.

At this point, I should insert a spoiler alert and dissuade those who have not yet seen the film from reading further.

Chang, one of modern China's literary greats who died in 1995, had been briefly married to Hu Lancheng, an intellectual who collaborated with the puppet, Japanese-installed regime in early-1940s Shanghai.

Inspired by her own life and set in that troubled period of Chinese history, Lust, Caution is the story of a female agent who lets the man she has been working hard to trap and kill go free, only to be killed by him.

China at the time was a divided country, with the Japanese forces, the nationalists and the communists all holding separate strongholds. There were spies and double-agents on all sides.

Taiwanese director Lee has said in interviews that he was haunted for years by Chang's short story and had always wanted to turn it into a film.

"To me, no writer has ever used the Chinese language as cruelly as Eileen Chang, and no story of hers is as beautiful or as cruel as Lust, Caution," he said.

With its subject matter a powder keg of female sexuality and China's 'holy' war against Japan, Lee said making Lust, Caution was "more frightful for me than portraying gay cowboys of America" - a reference to his earlier homosexual film, Brokeback Mountain.

However, the end result is a film that bears a striking continuity with Lee's previous works, most of which feed on the tension between keeping up appearances and being true to one's desires.

Lee's humanistic, even-handed approach to film-making, some critics argue, has tempered Chang's theatre of cruelty.

As one critic wrote on popular Chinese web portal Sina.com: "Lee has changed the core of Chang's story, which is about how women can lose their senses momentarily in a fit of passion while men can heartlessly go on as normal."

There is some truth to that statement, as the character played by Leung is imbued with rather more yin than yang, compared to Chang's protagonist.

At the end of the film, Leung's character Mr Yee is seen with tears in his eyes, caressing the sheets of the bed once occupied by his lover Wang Jiazhi, whom he has executed.

Compare this to the ending of the original story: Mr Yee reflects after his swift, coldly decisive actions that Wang "must have hated him towards the end... but if not for such potent maleness, she would not have loved him".

In the story, the author wrote that "alive, (Wang) was his woman; dead, she is his ghost". In the film, they possess each other and are equally possessed.

Lust, Caution is redolent with other mysteries revolving around this woman, played in the film by ingenue Tang Wei.

One wonders why his gift of a huge pink diamond ring led her to warn him of his impending assassination. Interestingly, part of the Chinese word for 'ring' is a pun on the word for 'caution'.

Did she succumb after being confronted by this six-carat rock of his desire - one which he would not even buy for his wife - and symbol of unbelievable wealth and power amidst wartime scarcity?

Or was it a calculated move? Tired of playing her part, had she weighed the odds and decided to cast her lot with a man who had given her more than her shadowy bunch of fellow agents ever did?

The film also poses another intriguing question about her motivations. Why did she not kill herself after letting Mr Yee escape, knowing she would be killed for her actions, if not by her fellow-conspirators for betraying them, then by him for being part of a plot to kill him in the first place?

I voiced this question aloud over supper after the film with a male friend. Why did Wang not take her own life - swallowing a pill that was given to her for that purpose - instead of letting others take it for her?

To my surprise, he had an answer.

"She wanted to find out for herself if Mr Yee would spare her life in return for her sparing his.

"She wanted to see if he really loved her. At the end of the day, women are all the same. You need to know these things," he said with a laugh.

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I have GOT to see that film dammit.

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It's already out in china town bootleg dvd. Got a copy last weekend.

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ohhhhhh you dog you.. just had to RUB it in didn't you? Wonder if you can get me one and send it to me. pretty pleeeeeease

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I got the initial run off the presses. The subsequent bootleg runs will be better quality. I will forward you one when its released. Happy now?

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phfffffttt....

LOL i guess so.. sniff sniff

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Either that or watching the first runs which is like screening Deep Throat hidden in the corner theatre, dim lighting, poor picture quality, moving subtitles and the occasional smoker's hacking cough.

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I think im just going to find a torrented copy.

I saw that in theatre last week... I was so good. I love Ang Lee, he is one of fav directors. He made a movie I really liked called The Ice Storm...Has anyone seen it?