Among the higher profile entries in Toronto, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution had a particular notoriety coming in; not only were fest-watchers waiting to confirm or contradict the early mixed reaction from the Venice Film Festival (Variety's early review accused it of having "too much caution and too little lust"), they were also curious to see what earned this erotic thriller its NC-17 rating.

Thankfully, all the worry was for naught. Lee's WWII thriller, set in China during the Japanese occupation, is a tense, beautiful, and sexy affair with plenty to recommend it besides the handful of superhot love scenes. With a plot akin to Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (which played at Toronto last year) and the sexual charge of Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, Lust, Caution reveals the story of a young woman (newcomer Tang Wei) who gets swept up in a scheme to assassinate a Japanese collaborator (2046's Tony Leung).

We first meet Mrs. Mak, she's living the life of the young wife of a rich importer who joins a cunning social circle of mah-jongg-playing housewives with high-ranking husbands in 1940s Shanghai. But Mrs. Mak is really a woman named Wang, the alluring bait in a trap to kill secret service head Mr. Yee. One particular afternoon, she makes a secret phone call from a coffee shop and waits as an unknown plan is set in motion; subsequently, director Lee flashes back to the beginnings of the whole operation, when a small troupe of student actors decide that bloodshed will better serve the country than putting on nationalist plays.

Actress Wei is superb as Wang, who transforms from mousy teenager to stunningly sexual creature as her "performance" as a spy increasingly penetrates her own identity. Lee examines how false guises can seep into his characters' souls in a variety of ways, from the veiled cattiness at the mah-jongg table to cracks in each lover's façade that can be coaxed out only by sexual intimacy.

So, about the sex. It's pretty hot, and very graphic, and at times one wonders how such things are coordinated without being, well, real. But more significant than the salacious details is the fact that every instance of sex, especially Wang and Yee's first, brutal encounter, serves the film. Said initial liaison is built up with such slow anticipation -- Wang enters the apartment, has a look around, takes off her coat -- that by the time she begins to tease Yee we feel his urgent and explosive need for action. And although it does come violently -- a tad hard to watch, even -- it's unquestionably pulse-raising and visceral, and certainly crucial to understanding the attraction and the desperation between the two ill-fated lovers.





Lust, Caution won top honors at the Venice Film Festival, Lee's second Golden Lion in three years (Brokeback Mountain also took that festival's top award). The film is beautifully shot, and its sets and costumes produced in vivid and convincing period detail. Equally impressive is the perfect, evocative, melancholy score by Alexandre Desplat (Oscar-nominated for last year's The Queen, and awarded a Golden Globe for The Painted Veil). Focus Features will distribute the film in limited release September 28.