Lust, Caution

This is a remarkably brutal film from director Ang Lee, who returns to Shanghai for this tale of conspiracy and collaboration during the time of the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 40s. The movie opens with conspirator resistance fighter Wong Chia Chi giving the coded message to alert the assassination team plotting to kill the chief of the secret police - a leading Chinese collaborator Mr Yee. The film then goes back to four years earlier when the plot had begun. Wong Chia Chi is being used as bait to entrap Mr Yee, she becomes his mistress and what follows is shocking, fascinating, appalling and moving in turn. Ang Lee is a remarkable director and here he is exploring (expertly) the brutalisation of people. Mr Yee sees (and does) terrible things in his work and Wong Chia Chi exploits this to enwrap him in a relationship that is all consuming, violent and overwhelming. I can't say that this film is enjoyable, but it is thought provoking and full of suspense and emotion. Some of the scenes of violent sado-masochistic sex can only be termed pornographic, but somehow essential to the tale. Rating 7/10