Review: Ang Lee's Use of Color and Texture Makes 'Lust, Caution' Sing

As you watch "Lust, Caution" it's kind of hard not to compare and contrast the film to similar stories made by other filmmakers unafraid of probing such delicate subject matter. It made me think of Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book," but replacing the sly provocations with something a lot more genuine, sensual, and, weirdly enough, unfailingly honest. It feels like a filmmaker becoming a master of marrying Hollywood prestige and bravado with an obliqueness that gets richer and richer upon closer inspection. And even that is just scratching the surface of its fluid, dizzying showcase of primal urges going to war with rational thought. All while, you know, an actual war is being fought.

Kino Lorber and their Studio Classics label bring "Lust, Caution" to Blu-ray for the first time in the U.S. with a generally pleasing 1080p presentation that makes Lee's lush use of color and texture really sing. The Blu-ray offers the 157-minute NC-17 cut of the film here, as well as a 17-minute archival featurette about the production. Add in a terrific audio commentary by film historian Eddie Von Mueller ,and you have a solid release of a film that rightly deserves all the acclaim it received back in 2007, and more.

"Lust, Caution" follows Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang), a first-year Chinese theater student who ingratiates herself with a troupe of theater students hatching a plot to kill Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a top-level Chinese official planted by the Japanese government during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. But when Wong Chia Chi is tasked with seducing Mr. Yee and luring him to his death, their sexual relationship becomes more intense and causes conflicting feelings within her.

Eileen Chang, who wrote the short story the film is based upon, was one of the most famous American novelists, adept at poking at taboos with precision. It just so happened that Ang Lee was the perfect director to adapt that sensibility, as he had a knack for tearing back the layers of fear a person can wear to reveal something incredibly vulnerable. The explicit sex in the film is much more than just the physical lust between the two main characters, it legitimately shows both of these tired, fear-filled souls at their most bare.

Again, this new Blu-ray doesn't offer much by way of special features, but that shouldn't matter that much since this film has been begging for a proper release for years. If you want to see what happens when a strong filmmaker is tasked with one of the biggest challenges of their career and just hits it out of the park, then you owe it to yourself to pick this release up.

"Lust, Caution" is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics.