Ang Lee’s period romance is no Brokeback Mountain, though there is a heavy supply of thrusting. Lust, Caution is an NC-17 rated peak into life in China under Japanese occupation in the 1930s. Most of the film follows a school drama club that decides to become freedom fighters. They scheme to murder Chinese officials working with the Japanese government, and one gal (Wei Tang) is tapped to seduce and then kill a high-ranking official. For such a controversial movie, the sex scenes don’t even begin until 90 minutes into the flick (though our undercover heroine is deflowered by her drama club peer for the good of her mission). The movie is exquisitely shot, handsome in its details, and the lead performance by Tang is exceptional, simmering with conflicting emotions and some real sensual heat. The sex scenes doe have an erotic potency to them and they are more explicit than the kinder gentler fare found in typical Hollywood movies that consist of only seeing the slow-motion ecstasy result from a man on top. The offbeat love story gestates too late in the film’s run, leaving little time to delve deeper. Too much of the movie concerns back-story following the drama club’s road to becoming revolutionaries, and while it’s interesting it’s also rather needless on second thought. There’s a nine-minute difference between the R-rated version and the theatrical NC-17 cut; what’s in those nine minutes I do not know since I saw the edited version, but I’ve been told it’s a lot of thrusting. In lusty terms, the movie is heavy on foreplay and too short on a satisfying climax.

Nate’s Grade: B-