With their signature restraint and introversion, films by Taiwanese director Ang Lee have always been one of my biggest cinematic indulgence. What Lee presented in this latest adaptation of Eileen Chang’s most controversial piece, Lust, Caution, is largely a faithful visualization of the original work. He employed his usual restrainted style when portraying the characters, yet managed to preserve Eileen’s cruel observation that one could not fight against human nature in love, desire and pain. Lee chose to depict in great detail the heroine’s emotional journey to the hopeless end. One notable addition in the course are the sexual scenes that explicitly explored the evolution of Chia-Chih’s romantic entanglement with Yee. In the original writing Chang only described their sexual encounters with one line: “every time she was with Yee she felt cleansed, as if by a scalding hot bath; for now everything she did was for the cause.” But in the film three lengthy, candid scenes were devoted as important stages building up their entangled relationship. The first time was a rough and violent one where it seemed that Mr. Yee was the dominant power in their encounter; yet when Chia-Chih was left alone in bed, a transient smile on her face implied her initial success in obtaining Yee’s affection, and an emotional detachment that was bound to vanish soon. The second scene featured various twisted love-making positions that amplified their extreme delight and pain, especially through Yee’s pressing against Chia-Chih’s head. She began to surrender to this physical union. In the third scene when Chia-Chih and Yee turned at the same time to a hanging gun at bedside, she covered Yee’s eyes with a pillow. A faint glittering in her eye seemed to be the only physical outburst of her overwhelming emotional struggle in a forbidden and pointless attachment.
These exploration leads to the peak of their relationship: meeting at the geisha club. She performed Wandering Songstress with such tenderness, and he held her hands upon wiping away a teardrop. Two insecure, lonely souls met in a moment of companionship. “My darling, we are of one heart (郎呀，我们俩是一条心)” was a heart-broken line that brought me to tears. She certainly was caught by unprecedented softness in her life. Mr. Yee’s mind was harder to read at the moment, but Lee also rewrote the final scene for him to sit down in the dark room, swallowed by solitude, implicating a significant sense of loss. Lee skillfully diverged from Chang in his attempt to offer a slightly more comforting interpretation of Chia-Chih’s pathetic pursuit, as opposed to Chang’s absolute pessimism.
Details are also to be appreciated in this stylish reproduction of 1940’s Shanghai, in which every featured shot was used by Lee to unveil a certain level of tension. There were added-in depictions such as the heroine’s red lip-stain on her coffee cup, but also loyal recapitulation of Chang’s writing, as seen in the final scene of Chia-Chih: the delicate mannequins on display, the exuberant pedicab driver, the three colored pinwheels, the bustling crowds...in these last few minutes she spent on the street, the vibrancy of daily life shined before death fell.
As a whole, the film successfully recreated Chang’s story with masterful control in emotional development as well as detailing. Compared to Chang’s cold, detached fictional narration, I think Lee added subtle layers of empathy for the struggling characters and forever chained humanity.