A study of four mahjong players opens the movie. Identified only by their married names, the women chit-chat, play and exchange meaningful glances; the camera lingers and lingers with the meditative quality that characterizes Lee's oeuvre. But whereas in "Brokeback" contemplation bred recurring meaning, in "Lust, Caution" it introduces multiple themes, none of which are pursued to maturity.
It is soon suggested that Mrs. Mak is really Wang Jiazhi (Wei Tang), erstwhile student member of a patriotic theatre group and presently spy for the Chinese resistance. Her target, Mr. Yee (Cannes Best Actor Tony Leung), works for the Japanese as the Head of the Secret Service in Wang Jingwei's collaborationist World War II government. She must worm her way into his defenses, and craft the opportunity for assassination that her theatre group, now resistance cell, awaits. Their cause demands something of each individual in the group; in the first half of the movie, Lee makes a concerted attempt at depicting their sacrifice and gradual loss of innocence. Once Yee takes Wang as his mistress, however, the focus shifts to them, as though Lee tires then of the students' unrelenting naïveté.
The sex that follows is copious, frequently contorted, but never very compelling. In its choreographed moves, Lee's danse érotique manages instead to veil the lack of serious development in Yee and Wang's relationship. This failure registers in the flat climactic moment, which puzzles, and not in a clever way. Little comes before it to suggest that Wang will choose between country and love as she does, and-given that the movie's poignancy hinges upon her decision-her feelings are very poorly elaborated.
Within the confines of the characters' development and in spite of their difference in acting experience, Tang and Leung acquit themselves with remarkable intensity. Leung, in his serious roles, has come to define the brooding persona, but here both actors bring a powerful solitude to their characters. Wang, waiting in an immaculate café, strikes a figure of profound loneliness, unable to return to a pre-war simplicity and acutely aware that she must soon make a choice. Tang executes with convincing ease both these pivotal moments as well as the interplay of Chinese dialects that underpins the movie's cultural credibility. It helps, too, that she looks perfectly in place in 1940s Shanghai.
Lee has a predilection for period pieces-he helmed, besides "Brokeback," the Civil War epic "Ride with the Devil" and the much over-heralded "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Here, his experience translates effortlessly to World War II China. The costumes and sets are flawless, almost a little too much so for wartime, and he retains his masterful eye for the delicate staged shot. Although rarely absent, the sum of war's ravages retreats into inconspicuousness, instead allowing color and contrast to arrest one's attention. Some of the movie's most visually attractive scenes take place in Yee's Shanghai house; in this privileged space, made claustrophobic by the closeness of Rodrigo Prieto's camera, every face, dress and mahjong piece assumes striking clarity.
Thus it is all the more unfortunate that, like "Crouching Tiger," "Lust, Caution" suffers from infirmity of purpose. Motifs of sacrifice, loss of innocence and loneliness make appearances in one, ponderous movie, but in the final reckoning, Lee would probably have been better off making three.