Lust, Caution
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Lust, Caution is 2007 erotic espionage thriller directed by Academy Award-winning Taiwanese director Ang Lee, based on the short story of the same name published in 1979 by Chinese author Eileen Chang. The film is Lee's second to win a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
The film adaption and the story are said to be loosely based on an actual event that took place in 1939-1940. It is the first NC-17 rated film to be slated for wide distribution in the United States since Showgirls (1995).
In China, during the Japanese occupation in WW II, young women Mak is a member of a resistance group who plot to kill a Japanese collaborator, Yee. Mak starts a love affair with Yee for this purpose. However, she really falls in love with him, and just before her comrades kill him she warns him. He escapes and has the whole group executed, including Mak.
In its uncut form, Lust, Caution features three separate graphic rapacious sex scenes, with full-frontal nudity. The ten minutes of sex scenes reportedly took a grueling 100 hours to shoot, leading to speculations on whether the sex acts were simulated or real. In a number of countries, notably the People's Republic of China, Malaysia and (initially) Singapore, much of the sex scenes had to be cut before the film could be released.
