Se, jie / Lust, Caution (2007) – 3/5

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend?

The BAFTA-nominated „Se, jie“ or „Lust, Caution“ may have a relatively short title, but this is a really long movie as it runs for slightly over 2.5 hours. The director is Ang Lee, one of the most notable recent Asian filmmakers and especially if we look at success in Hollywood he is almost unmatched by other Asian filmmakers. His body of work is genuinely fascinating. He has this erotic thriller, then he has superhero movies (Hulk), martial arts (CTHD), stories about gay American cowboys and even focused on India with Life of Pi. There is so incredibly much to him and what is even better is how he always seems pretty kind and humble in interviews. There are three writers credited here and one is Eileen Chang whose name may sound modern, but she died a long time before this film was made and she is the writer of the original story. The two other writers are still with us and have worked together with Lee on numerous occasions. An American and an Asian: James Schamus (not Schmaus) of course many think of immediately when they hear „Brokeback Mountain“ and Hui-Ling Wang was a crucial part of „Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon“, so a great deal of experience. This film here is from 2007, which means it also has its 15th anniversary this year, but still it is not from the early days of Lee’s film-making if you think he made this before his breakthrough in Hollywood. On the contrary, he was already a big star and Oscar winner when he worked on this project here. But if you take a closer look, nobody can really be surprised. Or it does not even have to be a close look. The budget here is as massive as the film’s duration. Huge project.

The cast also includes big names: Tony Chiu-Wai Leung has been part of the elite for a long time and well Tang Wei was maybe a bit of a newcomer, but the talent is undeniable. A bit sad to see her struggle a bit with other projects in recent years, but I think things are getting better again for her with what she has been working on lately. Her looks are of course undeniable in this film here. Really beautiful in almost every scene and not a surprise at all the male protagonist falls for her sooner than later. I read she worked as a model in the past before she started acting. This is surely fitting. Great age difference between the two protagonists here as well, but this is never an issue in terms of the plot or story and also was not an issue for me as a viewer. It worked very well nonetheless thanks to convincing writing and acting. As for the rest of the cast, I cannot elaborate too much on the actors, but you can check out the names yourself if you like. I am sure people with more knowledge about Asian cinema will see a few familiar faces. This was also a massive project because we have four different producing countries listed here and there are a total of six languages spoken throughout the movie. You will not find such an amount in many films. If you cut United States and brief inclusions of English, it is all about Asia though what you hear, so chances are high you will need subtitles. The set I had was pretty good. I got lucky enough to watch this film on the big screen on the occasion of an Asian film series that has been going on here for a while in the German capital and I have appreciated it a lot, also before this movie. Really nice to see older films on the big screen again and even if the room was far from empty I think it was not as full as I saw it with other films like the animated Paprika. Anyway, I still hope this encourages more cinemas to do something similar. „Similar“ sounds a bit like „cinema“. I never noticed that. Anyway, back to this film now: It is at times a very slow movie and I understand it is not for everybody, but if you stay with it, it will get pretty rewarding. I myself even had a bit of a hard time to really get into this at the beginning and took me some time, but it was maybe my own fault if my mind was wandering off.

The key story is relatively simple for over 150 minutes. It is the times of war between China and Japan right before and during World War II. So there was not just stuff going on here in Europe. We have an attractive female spy from one side who has orders to make a connection with an important official from the other side and that she makes it possible for her folks to get close to said official and kill him. The first example of this was the scene when she asks him to come into the house with her after her first real date it was I think, but we understand that he declines. Inside, there were people waiting to shoot him immediately. This does not stay totally hidden and a man close to the official realizes what is going on and pays a visit to the other side where he loses his life when he actually attempts to switch sides if he gains a massive advantage from it himself. Of course, loyalty did not mean too much to him as he could have informed his boss immediately. By the way, it starts relatively harmless because these potential assassins are a group of stage actors initially, but become much more violent and political as the film continues. I kinda felt that maybe the other girl from the group, the innocent one initially, could play a bigger role, even the main role in some kind of transformation as the movie would go on, but it never happened and the focus stayed on the one who is seen as desirable from the very start. Then there is of course the aspect of erotica. We understand the female protagonist is wanted by all the men in the group basically, but ends up with one and her sexual relationship with that man is far from satisfying for her. This is also why the encounter with the male protagonist changes everything for her. The word „lust“ is included in the title for a reason. The first time they have sex it looked very brutal to me and I even doubted a bit that it was mutual. It might have been more difficult for Lee to get away with this depiction in the 2020s with #metoo and everything still going on than in the first decade of the new millennium. However, the following encounters were still very tense and sexually graphic, but there we see a great deal of mutual affection. On a few occasions, they even seem like a happy couple.

Of course, the male protagonist had his own wife at home who must not have known about all this or maybe she knew and tolerated it because it was surely not the first time something like this happened with her husband. We also find out about how the people in charge of the female protagonist’s actions attempted similar coups in the past, but the females got exposed, were tortured and eventually killed. This is not the case with our „heroine“ here or at least not until the very end when her solidarity had completely changed. It was the priceless ring and her falling for the enemy that made her blow her cover herself in the maybe most tense moment of the movie and we see he trusted her and did not expect this to happen, but was still always ready to run because he knew many people out there want him dead. So he heads off immediately and gets into his car safely. The female protagonist is captured moments after and so are her conspirators. This ending was surely among the most interesting parts the film had to offer. She saved his life, but he would not return the favor and has her killed as if she meant nothing to him. The political situation meant more than personal affection. How much you interpret into the fact that he did not decide to see her again or torture her even and also into his words that it is not his ring is up to you and everybody has to decide themselves. I think it was a very sad and haunting ending when we realize she will be executed because of her background. And life for him goes on the way it was before. This we realize when we see him talk briefly to his wife about the female protagonist. His family background was also a crucial factor because the female main character also got closer to his wife and other people surrounding him. This was basically how she also got closer to him.

There was also interesting talk about the situation of women back then over 80 years ago when one female character says they basically have nothing to do except take care of the home or play mah-jongg with other women. No further elaboration on that. There are many scenes and inclusions from this film that I could still write really a lot about, but impossible to fit it all in. One that is featured as a recurring part of this movie was the metaphor of how he stays away from the dark, be it if he is actually scared there or if it means a move of caution coming from him. She is lust. He is lust too of course, but he is also caution. Much more than she is. He had to be to stay alive. Anyway, you will find this darkness reference when they talk about going to the movies, but also for example when they have sex and there is something above his head. A bit of a power game even there. He would let her do this and this meant that he at least to some extent trusted her and maybe for her it was a way to toy with him, but also to get closer to bringing him into a scenario where her people can strike. She was absolutely not disloyal to them. She did not switch sides in terms of her views, even if she was never as dedicated as some of the others with her political views. Just in terms of her heart she switched sides and had to warn him. For example, she brought the letter to her friends so they could see what is inside. This was relatively close to the end already and thus linked to the fateful ring. There is talk about such a ring at the start as well by the way. This is all then. I think on rewatch I may even give four stars out of five here and not just three, but for now with the struggles I had at the beginning three seems fine. This is a rewarding and beautiful watch for sure, a truly tense political thriller and you can enjoy it without knowing the political climate of 1930s/1940s Asia. Don’t miss out.