It is not easy to find some time for my husband and me to go away together, leaving tons of work in his office and kids at home, to watch a movie, which is only shown in very limited theaters, very limited theaters distant from our house.
My husband is an Ang Lee’s fan, he watched all the movies Lee made, and loves them all. On the way, he asked me “Why do you want to watch this movie so much”? Why? The same question I have asked myself several times. The first answer is “It is a movie directed by Lee, it is a novel written by Eileen Chang. Besides all of these, it is a Chinese movie. How many times I have a chance to sit in an American theater and watch Chinese movies? Using one hand I can count it”. After reading Nancy’s movie review two days ago, I became more anxious, just couldn’t wait. I asked her if I should watch the movie first, or read the novel first. After one hour, her mail came back” I usually read novels first before I watch the movies, but this time I watch the movie first, read the novel next, then went back to watch the movie again. I think it might be better for you to watch the movie first”. I replied her back: “Too late. I just read it while waiting for your response”.
It is not a money-making movie, at least in US market. There were only about 30 people in the theater, half were Chinese. The movie is very long (158 min), the color tone is very dim, and the sound system in the theater was not too loud. I had to open my small, near-sighted eyes widely, pull my ears forcefully, while my heart sank heavily, loaded by the desperate hunger Wong bore, bitter love she carried on, and the youth life those young people finally lost. My husband says “I thought the ending would be the resistance all rushed in, killed Yee, Wong also died during their tangled gun fighting”. I said” Absolutely not. The story would just become a love story if both man and woman died that way”. In fact, when Lao Wu screamed at Wong, telling her she has to forget her own feeling, justice and dignity, but only be “loyal”, it reminded me of another Hollywood movie “Good Shepherd”. The only difference is that movie tries to put “loyalty” on screen in a positive, heroic way, while Lust Caution used this unexpected ending to tell us all of these so called “loyal”, “dedication”, are just brutal, dirty and cheating. Passion can be frozen by cold blood, enthusiasm can be misled to a nightmare, love can be ruined by war, and finally, life is devoted to ------emptiness and illusion.
But Eileen Chang is Eileen Chang, Ang Lee is Ang lee. The novel is Chang’s novel, and the movie is Lee’s movie. Chang’s novel is cold, distant and calm, while Lee’s movie is closer, dramatic and powerful. In the novel, Yee is totally inhuman, just thinking of his own promotion after her death, even feels proud of himself to have a loyalty ghost from then on. But in order to make the movie touching, not only making money from audience’s pockets, but also tears from their body, Lee made Yee more sympathetic, feels lonely, guilty, sad……Chang’s novel is a silent black and white sketch, while Lee’s movie is a colorful, bloody oil painting.
I agree that Lee looks very quite, modest, mild, but he must be like a covered volcano inside. Even from his early movies like “Wedding Banquet”, “Food, Drink, Men and Women”, let alone the recent works like “Ice Storm”, “Broke Back Mountain” and “Lust Caution”, they are all filled with struggling, suppression and explosion. I hope he can explode the audience, or box value, which matters even more, but not himself.
As a NC-17 movie, it has a lot of very exposed sexual scene. Statistics show there are much more female spies really fall in love with their targets once they start to have sexual relationship with them. I think Lee tries to use those scenes to interpret that old famous (Chinese) saying” Go to a man’s heart through his stomach, go to a woman’s heart through her vagina”.
Everybody praise for Leung’s acting. Both my husband and I think Tang Wei is really fantastic in the movie. Her acting is timid but bold, hostile but merciful, natural but powerful. I seldom cry for a movie, neither did I for this one. But my husband told me he burst into tears watching her crying on the stage during their fund raising performance. “Why?” I asked. “I don’t know, just because she cried, and all the audience up there got moved”. I picture in my mind everybody up there shouting “China will not fall”, and my husband, sitting next to me, a Chinese without tears, wiping his face, I think the scene is very cute.
Somebody say Tang is not so good looking, too big, too fat. I don’t think Big or Fat is her problem. In fact her problem is too small------her breasts. Oriental women don’t have huge curves as westerners do, that’s why our ancestors invested Qi Pao, to show whatever we have there. But even with skinny Qi Pao, Ms. Tang is still as flat as a piece of cutting board, front and back. She also loses her waist line due to the flat breasts. It’s not her fault, it’s Lee and his modelist’s mistake. They could easily use certain kind of bra to make her at least B-Cup looking, especially in the novel Wong is described as a woman with a pair of huge dangling hills at front.
Maybe Lee has no time to worry for these minor problems, he said it is too heavy, too exhausting to live in Chang’s world. Leung is also totally burned and drained by this movie, can not come back to his normal life. When I walked out from the theater with a slight headache and sweaty sweater, there is only one word I can use to describe this movie: tiring, emotionally tiring. It is tiring for me to watch it for 158 minutes, it is tiring for me to get lost and could not pull myself out from the movie in the following two days, and it is tiring for me to spend 4 hours writing this nonsense (it is definitely not a review. I have no guts to write one after reading Nancy and others’). Finally for you to read it, it must be tiring, and boring too.
