Reel Geezers-Lust, Caution

[philsnk]

From the synopsis it sounds like the woman suffered from some sort of mental collapse and seeming being sort of being unfit for marriage, for standards at the time then commits to saying shes in love to the rapist. But of course I bet they never put that in the film. 

[tadamori]

I saw the movie and I liked it too. This movie isn't really a traditional love story. I think its more about how political violence perverts human relationships. I think that the movie has something to do with the idea that unquestioning loyalty leading to a loss of humanity as all the characters seem to be people who start off with, or once had, ideals. But over time become corrupted and inhuman murderers. The girl is the only one who retains her humanity by following her desires for love.

[tadamori]

While the movie is not a happy one, I don't think the story is a disappointment, but I can see how it might be if one were expecting a traditional love story with a happy ending. In the world of this movie, people's ideals are crushed. I think the film accurately reflects the experience of the generation in the sense that the chinese were an occupied people who's entire society was in chaos and who, depending on which political group, you belonged to never resolved this issue.

[tadamori]

I like your reviews though. They are both funny, you have good points, and I like hearing both of your perspectives. I'll definitely be subscribing!

[JazzyZenBrotha]

I like your reviews. You both are comical too. Well, I have to say that I enjoyed LUST CAUTION a lot. But that is what is great about the world; people have different opinions. But I still recommend this movie. I loved it

[devilbesidemefan1]

lol this video kind of made me horny

[manias88]

terrible movie Ang Lee is overrated.

[dutchmareo]

NadineWithFlowers, I think he said Kar-Wai movies because Leung did act in "In the mood for love", and you can find similarities in the characters he portrayed. In short, I don't see what :

"Kar-Wai movies?! You really ahve no idea do you..."

is all about.

[fehquig]

Date movie... You comedian!

[FrakkinToasterLuvva]

"The scenes are not sexy or sensual", "Why are the Resistance people bad guys in today's movies". The comment so totally misses the point of the movie that it's funny. And how ironic is it that people here keep getting outraged at the rape in this movie, when Marcia named the scene in Gone with The Wind as an example of eroticism? In case you've forgotten, what Rhett did to Scarlett WAS rape, more obviously than in Lust (Scarlett was clearly protesting it) but it's all made to look 'romantic'!

[roshmn]

she went thru with her eyes open?ha

she was brave but stupidly fell inlove

[NadineWithFlowers]

Kar-Wai movies?! You really ahve no idea do you...

[hectorposte]

The deep path of Pasion is full of pain, self punishement, stormy feelings going over the borders of tamed love. How long are you prepared to go in order to find the satisfaction for such a dark happiness? Mr Yee and Mrs Makk find themselves in a tumultous historical moment. They should be aim for each other as perfect loving mates. But pasional love doesn t follow written rules, so their encounters are condemned to end in the imposibility of reaching commitment.

[omgwtfwhoami]

Wait a minute.  This is the guy behind Never Say Never Again?

[WDYTUN]

And in the final encounter, she hangs on to the the false sense of pocessment of Mr. Yi out of pure desperation. No one have ever shared that kind of intimacy with her through all her lonely life. She she has with Mr. Yi is a tangle of hate, confusion, and a sense of intimacy that really can not be called love.

[WDYTUN]

During the second encounter, she is trying to do her job by her performance. However, during the process, she developed a longing for the intimacy he and Mr. Yi have had. She still doesn't know what it is.

[WDYTUN]

The talks on the sex scences (sensual or not) are really off the main point.

I guess the hardest part to understand is how could the female character falls in love with the abusive Mr. Yi after he raped her. How could she smile after being forced on.

My understanding is that Jia-Chih was fully aware the brutal nature of Mr. Yi before they met, and she is simply happy that she was not identified as a spy, and can continue with her job.

[bmobaggins]

"in our generation of going to movies in the 40's...."

thats all you needed to say really. your generation is close to 70 years old. Your both very smart but also out of touch with modern cinema.

[harry19860128]

OK, seems the two of them want to see some really political movies about China....

Politics are something happened, y dont you go to check history books?

[tracyterry]

i wanna fuck this dinosaur bitch

[dmarc]

The violence in the Yee and Wang's relationship is a reflection of their tortured inner beings- that is why she ultimately fell for him, because the line between deception and reality was blurred by the sum of all that happened before.

ALSO... LOL, David O. Selznick! No wonder they couldn't stand the film- modern movies are WAY longer than the average American film up until the 1960s and 70s.

[ilovemusic1994]

its awesome you guys can do this =)

my grandparents dont even know how to turn a computer on

[kds4ever]

Marsha is sick of women being portrayed as victims.

So am I. Marsha and Lorenzo are soul mates who really know how to stick it to each other.

[aicheyearaem]

Amen. WANG KAR WAI BURIES THE BULLSHIT THAT ANG LEE PUTS OUT.

[BobNew]

Lorenzo, I love Papillon. All respect to you, sir.

[alpinestar004]

this is the best couple ever!

[jingrl89]

At the jewelry shop, Mrs. Mak is desperate for an escape and, like any young girl, she dreams that a knight in shining armor, Mr. Yee, can rescue her for a happy ending. Why else didn't she take the suicide pill the nationalists left her? She confused lust with love, believing Mr. Yee could save her when he couldn't.

[jingrl89]

People don't seem to understand why Mrs. Mak would fall in love with Mr. Yee. The answer is quite simple. Mrs. Mak is a naive, idealistic girl, who is obviously in way over her head with the assassination. As the movie progresses, her nationalist friends pretty much abandon her. At this point, only Mr. Yee gives her any affection, which is a far cry better than what her friends, especially Kuang YuMin, were giving her.

[dmarc]

Why o why do old white people always seem so freaking ignorant?

They obviously don't know the Sino-Japanese War history very well, or understand the complexity of personal relationships- Mr. Yee was not simply working for financial gain and Kuang possessed an irrational fear brought on by the intense circumstances they were in. By following an abstract movement that even they were pawns in, they sadly lost themselves in the struggle- like MANY revolutionaries/freedom fighters in history.

[asupremenything]

"I give up" AH HA HA HA HA, oh goodness, hilarious

[GiullarediDio]

I think they mean 'Don't Look Now', not 'Don't Look Back'.

[sharonafox1]

Heather Finnegan...Thank you for this wonderful gift!

Loved hearing them talk about how the resistance was portrayed by movies years ago. My mentor was Helmut Dantine (his mentor was William Wyler) who always seemed to be cast as the German soldier who resisted Hitler. I was born way after that time but I love hearing about the history.

[jinieee]

i wonder if the sex scenes in the movie are real... like really really real?!!

because if so then iam really impressed that both tony leung and tang wei were agreeing to this as it could affect their image as an actor.. dont u guys think so too?

[1pinkmarshmallow07]

who cares if they were really doing it, as long as they do look like they are doing it,that's for us

[withsmilemm]

Also, if you watch it carefully, all the women except for only one or two had sexrual relationship with Mr. Yee. Mrs. Yee was just using Mr. Mak to fight back with those women to get things back in control. What an intriguing movie...

[withsmilemm]

There wasn't anyone outside the jewelry store in order to shoot Mr. Yee. What Mrs. Mak did was completely a mistake and nonsense, and watch out the last conversation between Mr.Yee and his wife, she said Secretary Zhang took away something from the study room, it means the next one might be Mr. Yee...

[withsmilemm]

The most ruthless guy in this movie is Secretary Zhang, it was him who revealed Mrs. Mak and killed her. He oversaw Mr. Yee and made sure Mr. Yee was serving the Japanese. Mr. Yee wasn't even the traitor and what he did was actually helping Chongqing government to get the firearms.

[dmarc]

I actually blame a lot of it on Old Wu... His old-hand tactics in regard to assassination doomed the team from the start- it was also very telling how he could not stand to hear the truth of what Wang had to do in order to seduce Mr. Yee.

And in the end, the old bastard got away! Was that in the original story? Dammit, I hate Ang Lee movies!

[withsmilemm]

Let me tell you some more background of the movie and the short novel. This is really a very special novel writen by probably the most famous contemporary Chinese writer, and it even took Eileen Chang almost 10 years to finish it. All the plot you see is the exposed one, and there are hidden ones that you may discover only when you start to reason the story.

[yonghe1]

She is still wonderful, (very sexy, even without strip), deserves every credit for performance, and Ang Lee is still a great director-We were expecting traditional like Sense and Sensibility, contemporary like Brokeback Mountain, or this- love behind conscious, which I am not convinced at all. To bindingnemo: I am not old, and English is my 3rd language.

[bindingnemo]

Reply to yonghe1... WTF? It should be an intuitive thing that you don't beat someone while making love, I mean WTF? I seriously thought it was a good movie, but now after hearing what the old folks said, I think it's crap. The guy and girl in the movie are both psychopaths, that's why they love each other.

[bindingnemo]

Awesome comment by the two old folks. I have not watched the movie. I only saw the previews, and read about the general scheme of the movie. I thought the guy was nice and gentle and that's why she fell in love with him, but it's quite the opposite. This movie is weird, he raped her and she liked it? I mean what the hell? I think it's not that white people can not reach out, it is just that this movies has bad taste. Making love should not include beating. I am Chinese by the way.

[swc868]

@bindingnemo Go and watch the movie, and you'll see how far off the commentators have gone astray from what was portrayed. And omg! A date movie?! It just goes to show how far off the target they were. I was depressed after my first viewing when it was released, and couldn't bear to watch it a second time until recently. It is one of the masterpieces which I deem too emotionally overwhelming for second viewing, like Schindler's List, Lord of the Flies and Life is Beautiful.

[jiranjiran]

I am so sorry that many white people couldn't reach what we asian could reach in this movie.

This is a kind of art we just need to watch not to discuss of.

[kamapuaa2]

jiranjiran: The screenplay was written by James Schamus, and Ang Lee is pretty much a Western Director filming for a Western audience.

[yonghe1]

We are sex saturated, but not in china. So far US box sales only below 3 millions over months, (it might not mean anything). And the movie receives almost negative reviews, which people blame of myopia on culture ignorance. (I am a Chinese, by the way). In china, Box sales 5.6 millions in US dollars in first 4 days with the cheap currency. People even fly to Hong Kong to pursue whole unedited version, just because this is the first Chinese sex movie.

[yonghe1]

Yet there is no intelligent lust involving- Lust is such physical, extremely intensive. And caution is almost cautionless. Assassination were so close to success, until girl changed mind. For what? love almost invisible from girl side. Yes, girl liked sex. You can also interpreted it as addiction, just like vary normal person. The decision making was impulsive obviously, after facing a 6 carat great stone. That disgusted me.

[hyyuan323]

The point is not how much carat.. it is the meaning for that stone. That represent he trust her and care her, even much more than his original wife.

[rborgeryd]

I totally agree with you. The story's moral is terrible:

It seems to say that rape can be the beginning of a lovestory, and that women fall in love with a man not because he is good to her and has beautiful personal qualities, but because he gives her expensive blood diamonds. I felt to sick to sleep well .

[honey2944]

Original novel was one of the best and most controversial short fictions in Chinese modern literature history. The author took more than 20 years to complete revision before she finally published it in 1960s. Its a twisted love story in a twisted period of history; even fleshly pleasure was full of pain; each character simply dwelled for momentarily comfort as there was no future or hope throughout the novel. Extremely powerful. It is not about morality, rather humanity.

[honey2944]

Btw, the story was based on a true story. Only that the ending was not that romantic. She was arrested, brutally tortured and executed by Japanese. He remained alive till Japanese surrendered; then he was tried and was also executed by these he once tortured.

[yonghe1]

As spiritual entertaining, "Lust Caution" should have been able to provide us more than just visual lust. We are living in sex saturated society already, (certainly privately).

[yonghe1]

What a terrible waste, with good story, a great actor, (Hong Kong star-Leung Chiu-wei, who showed us successfully a bad bad person with terrible tastes both in human blood and sex), and beautiful girl with wonderful performance. New comer Tang Wei, was recruited from over 10,000 ambitious talents (from Mr. Lee' interview). No wander she is willing to finish very order from great director. Mr.'s. Geezers are right, no body stop a great director. Or people just over trusted him.

[wangyemei]

西方人还是和中国人有不同的视点。

很多人都将眼光放到这部电影的等级上。

裸露场面，奇怪体位，露没露点。

张爱玲写的小说在猥琐的人眼里也成了色情片的剧本.

什么内涵都被掩盖了。还真是仁者见仁，智者见智

[han666]

Thanks for the insightful comment, I fully agree with what you said. Many Western reviews are completely missing the point of the movie.

I feel that both Yee and Wang are trapped in their roles as collaborator and spy respectively, which brought about the inevitable tragic ending. It's only during their sex could they find some temporary solace and freedom.

[Wangsiluan]

Americans would never understand the real beauty of East culture.

[burningpumpkins]

You Americans are too clouded in the sex to understand the meaning behind it. It's not rape, it's a power thing. He feels powerless and stressed out, and seeks unnatural ways to, for lack of a better word, "get on top"? He is troubled, mainly because his country is in turmoil -- while women are getting tortured, starved, and raped, he is supporting the people who are doing it for reasons of power, obviously. I could say more, but I doubt you will understand Chinese culture.

[rborgeryd]

Is rape not usually a "power thing"? And how can you excuse it as such? It is rape when somebody is violently forced.

[honey2944]

I am not defending a rapist, take it easy. I am simply discussing the movie with you from the literature perspective. She was first seducing him in the scene; his surprisingly violent reaction, which ended raping her, was an outbreak of his long time physiological suppression (not just sexually). If you think one more step, this scene is a reflection of their sadistic relationship.

[honey2944]

Both of them suffered from tortured by whom they report to (Japanese as well as anti-Japanese organizations). It was an age where humanity is raped by cruelty of war and ideology. I think that was what the author and director wanted to express. What do you think?

[edmame]

these geezers RAWK! move over roeper.

[jenniferdragon]

BTW, in the 40s, majority of Chinese women still lose virginity the way Wang lost it-- to an unknown man, just that the parents have chosen for her, not for her own patriotic cause. It is actually brutal and unkind, just as we see it in the film.

[jenniferdragon]

The second part: The students failed and they re-united again in Shanghai 6 years later. The resistance found them and trained them for the same act they pulled six years ago.

[jenniferdragon]

More on the story line:

The first time they met in Hong Kong (6 years ago), it was only a patriotic act of the drama club at school.  Wang, the girl, was part of a student group that was trying to show they are patriotic by seducing and killing Mr. Yee.

[jenniferdragon]

Ang Lee has to take a lot of time to create that world for Western viewers. And then he tells a up-close and personal story of two spies in that world. The girl was supposed to seduce and kill Mr. Yee, who is the head of "KGB" type organization.

I guess that world is still just to far away.

[jenniferdragon]

In a way, this movie is extremely politically sensitive. It comes from an unusual time, a period that affects almost all Chinese in the world today. If you have exposures to traditional Chinese upbringing and some proper Chinese Literature education, a lot of acts and emotions in the movies are not spoken out loud but understood.

[Yodaback]

The reviews are awesome, must more fun than the movie itself.

[ychuychu]

the man has NO knowledge of the film. First, Mr. Yee is not just a bad businessman, but also a torturer. Second, rape -> love ? doesn't make sense to that old man but it makes sense to me.

The man has demonstrated his innocense.

The lady is much better.

[burningpumpkins]

You're ridiculously uneducated. Or maybe, you were too busy fiddling around in your pants like the rest of those idiotic people concentrated on the sex, to realize that his "rape" represented his anguish and desperate need for power. Only in power, and being dominating in sex did he feel like he had control, because at that time of history, he was under a LOT of pressure, and his character tackles these emotions in this way. HE'S not a fucking businessman.

[1917285207]

These reviews are terrific.

[cherriesjub]

I very much enjoy the different perspective and their knowledge of films.

[redpoppydotnet]

hf: awesome, always, my friend. you and me in 50 yrs?

[maymaerg]

another awesome session!

[1917285207]

The review makes the movie sound intriguing.

Great reviews.

[afewgoodclips]

You two are awesome. So many funny comments and great insight into film making. I hope you get a cable show out of this, if not keep making videos anyway.