Ang Lee - how dare you so brazenly bring a quality story from the East to an unwitting Western audience! Subtle human interactions? Emotive non-verbal passages of (gasp) acting? Where are the dramatic explosions? Where are the multi-billion-dollar pixelated feats of geek-tastic grandeur? And who are these actors? Where’s Tom Cruise? Where’s Cameron Diaz?
What’s that? You actually want us to concentrate on a quality story? With all due respect, sir, you do realize the hemisphere in which you’ve landed, don’t you? Just whom do you think you are, Mr Lee?
(end sarcasm here)
Set in a convincing WWII Shanghai, this not-so-subtle conspiratorial love story centers around a young woman drawn into the Chinese resistance and trained for a single mission - gain the affections of a high-ranking official and kill him. In the course of baiting her prey - using every soft, surreptitious curve and coy, furtive fancy at her disposal - the protagonist gains an honest affection both for and from her target, and therein will lie the tension . . . to murder or not to murder her lover.
The trailer promises to deliver on the NC-17 rating, though in conjunction with the stark realism of the presentation, the alluded content hardly seems gratuitous. The culture and atmosphere of the era play convincingly on screen, the cinematography is smooth, and the acting solid. So solid in fact, the characters are engaging, substantial, and laden with intrigue in spite of the lack of dialogue in the trailer. That’s right . . . it’s another film you’ll have to read . . . but it’s worth it.
Technorati Tags: Lust, Caution, Ang Lee, WWII, SHanghai, foreign film, subtitles, Chinese, love story, drama, period, NC-17
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