Lust, Caution
Lust, Caution
During World War II era, a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.
Desmond Dale reviewedJanuary 24, 2025
From the opening scene, I fell in love with its visual style. Some of the frames are like looking at hyper realistic oil paintings. It's tastefully ornate with lots subdued cool tones like emerald green and desaturated blues. The characters are always beautifully framed with natural warm lighting utilized like a dimly light spotlight revealing their subtle nonverbal cues.
The plot is not too unlike the ancient tale of Judith and Holderness albeit with a much different ending. Lust, Caution kind of has the feel of an eastern neo-noir, which utilizes the ruthlessness of war as its source of foreboding doom. Its subjects are forbidden lovers who must make a choice between duty/political ideals and desire/love. There relationship is built on a tumultuous foundation and its physicality embodies the thin line between hate and desire and pleasure and pain like a microcosm of the war outside between the rebel forces and regime in rule.
I loved every second that Tony and Tang were on screen and no, not just the intense sex scenes. In a way, the film was kind of victim of its own success. I was so enthralled and intrigued by the fire between the central lovers that at times I found the narrative shifts to to ancillary characters and relationships to be a bit distracting. That's one of the few flaw that I can think of along with just not being the biggest fan of the film's overall narrative structure and the jarring tone changes.