The type of poetic, erotically charged historical epic Joe Wright dreamed he was producing when he delivered us the canon fodder Oscar bait Atonement, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is not only a rival in visual beauty to its like-minded and sadly more acclaimed period rival this season, but also a far more raw and emotional piece of drama. Newcomer Tang Wei makes a film debut for the ages as a morally comprised double agent in wartime China forced to seduce a Japanese cooperator for whom she feels only rage. Trapped in the role of a doting mistress, she makes a brave and emotionally destructive sacrifice that leads her to ever more complicated depths of self-discovery. Tony Leung could also not be more skin-crawlingly debaucherous yet debonair as the object of her fraudulent affections. He’s a gentlemen of note with an insatiable appetite for vulgarity that ensnares his young and, unbeknownst to him, duplicitous lover in a tightly weaved web that creates the highest level of intensity of any on-screen couple all year, stone-faced Keira Knightley and the all too misused James McAvoy included.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
DVD of the Week: Lust, Caution
The type of poetic, erotically charged historical epic Joe Wright dreamed he was producing when he delivered us the canon fodder Oscar bait Atonement, Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is not only a rival in visual beauty to its like-minded and sadly more acclaimed period rival this season, but also a far more raw and emotional piece of drama. Newcomer Tang Wei makes a film debut for the ages as a morally comprised double agent in wartime China forced to seduce a Japanese cooperator for whom she feels only rage. Trapped in the role of a doting mistress, she makes a brave and emotionally destructive sacrifice that leads her to ever more complicated depths of self-discovery. Tony Leung could also not be more skin-crawlingly debaucherous yet debonair as the object of her fraudulent affections. He’s a gentlemen of note with an insatiable appetite for vulgarity that ensnares his young and, unbeknownst to him, duplicitous lover in a tightly weaved web that creates the highest level of intensity of any on-screen couple all year, stone-faced Keira Knightley and the all too misused James McAvoy included.
