Lust, Caution ladies

Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution is a brilliant drama that’s equally gorgeous and heartbreaking. The attention to style and detail on the set of ’40s Shanghai is incredible, and a true thing of beauty. On the other side, the depiction of cruelty by humans and fate is as brutal–it not more so. In Japan-occupied China, everything is epic; everything is tragic.

So meeting Tang Wei in a simple knit dress with her hair down is a bit of a shock. She comes off like a regular person, upbeat and unfazed by a long day at a fancy hotel spent facing the press and probably answering the same questions over and over again.

“To me, it is so good. Every reporter asks me questions and makes me think. Even if they’re the same questions, a different emotion or different face will make me think of different things,” Tang says.

In case you don’t know, she plays a student who is first recruited to be a stage actress and then recruited to help assassinate a Chinese agent who works for the Japanese, played by Tony Leung. The job entails seducing him, and their relationship proves to be intense and tricky on psychological, emotional, and physical levels. Their relationship manifests in very graphic Kama Sutra-inspired positions, which are already gaining infamy among less-than-liberated audience members.


“Even though I’m part of the movie, I can’t understand a lot of things,” the actress admits in textbook English. “Questions can help me to slowly get out of the character.”

Tang sums up her character as brave. Forced into uncomfortable situations, she discovers her strengths and limits. But in her estimation, to play such a role doesn’t require a brave actress.

“She never thinks of herself as a brave woman. She does what she wants to do. And I am just like a normal person in the audience.”

The first-time film actress is guilty of ridiculously high standards or incredible humility—perhaps both, as a result of finding her role at 27. She is no young thing plucked into stardom by Lee, but a seasoned theatre actress trying something new and succeeding wildly. Like her character, she discovers that was indeed born to play roles.

And then there’s Joan Chen, the next person whom I’m scheduled to meet. She’s dressed for photos and has a totally different demeanor. “Finding herself” is not on her to-do list on press day because she’s already been located and centered. Our time flows more like a conversation than an interview.


Chen was picked out of high school at 14 to attend a training program for Shanghai Film Studios and gone on to act in films of all budgets and genres on either side of the camera. She tells me that she is proud of some of her movies and not proud of others. Lust, Caution belongs to the former category.

“It forces the mainstream Western culture to accept a different version of Chinese-ness,” she says. “It’s not like flying amongst bamboo, punches, and kicks. It has such depth and such complexity. They didn’t usually embrace that part of Chinese-ness.”

Chen and the director have known each other for a while, and signed on to the project before even knowing what it entailed.

“We used to know each other a little better in our younger days,” she recalls. “After he left NYU and before he did Pushing Hands, he was writing the script for The Wedding Banquet and was tailoring it for me. I missed that one, and when we saw each other in Shanghai, I was like, ‘Great! If you think I’m right for it, I’ll do it.’ Then I read the novella and thought, ‘Hm. How do I do this?’”


Playing Tony Leung’s husband was not a big role but it was complex, requiring extraordinary amounts of class and subtlety. Her extraordinarily nuanced performance is both daunting and mysterious, and it actually paid dividends in two concrete ways: (1) She became quite good at mahjong, and (2) it is a movie that she enjoys watching.

“Usually, I cannot enjoy watching a movie I’m in. This time is different because I’m in a very small role,” she says. “When I first saw it in San Francisco, I didn’t know if the sex scenes were going to be in it. I thought, Whoa!”

Would she have been interested in some scenes like that? “Of course. I could pull them off, but it would be a different film. Ang kept looking at me and said, ‘You know, I should have Leehong’s character seduce Mrs. Yee!’”

Perhaps that will be a sequel. Until then, there’s Lust, Caution, putting the spotlight on Tang Wei and Joan Chen--two actresses in different stages of their careers playing two characters with different relationship to Tony Leung--perfectly cast and perfectly executing a compelling study of acting, reality, and identity.