Ang Lee's Lust, Caution wins top award at Venice

 

VENICE, Italy  Sept. 09, 2007 (AP)

Taiwan-born Ang Lee's erotic spy thriller Lust, Caution won the Venice Film Festival's top award Saturday, two years after he captured the same prize here with Brokeback Mountain.

Lee's film is set against the backdrop of Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II. An idealistic young acting troupe in Hong Kong driven by patriotic fervor concocts a naive plot to assassinate a Chinese official collaborating with the Japanese during World War II. Their star performer delves into the role of seductress as an escape from the emptiness of her father's abandonment and mother's death.

Lust, Caution

Her pursuit of a cruel, aloof man takes her from Hong Kong to Shanghai at the height of the Japanese occupation — and her deception becomes her reality.

Lust, Caution, which contains explicit sexuality, has been given an NC-17 rating in the United States, banning viewers under 17. The film also does not shrink from a graphic portrayal of violence. It is due out in the United States at the end of September.
 

Raunchy Ang Lee film wins Venice festival's top award  (Credit: Richard Brooks - timesonline)

A sexually explicit film by the former Oscar winner Ang Lee won the coveted Golden Lion top prize at the Venice film festival last night. Lust, Caution is a Mandarin language espionage thriller which has already caused a stir with very graphic sex scenes.

Lee, who won the Golden Lion with Brokeback Mountain at Venice in 2005 before it went on to take Oscars, has argued that his film is “not pornography” although he did admit that it is not suitable for children.

Lee’s film, based on a novella by Eileen Chang, follows a Chinese woman in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during the second world war. She finds herself at the centre of a plot to seduce and kill a married enemy collaborator.

In America, where the film opens later this month, Lust, Caution has been given the NC17 rating. This can sometimes lead to only a limited release because many American cinema chains refuse to show such adult-only films for fear of putting off families.

The film also contains some violent scenes, especially one in which students stab and bludgeon a man to death graphically. It has already been announced that some of the sex scenes will be removed for the film’s release in China.

Lee is now acknowledged as one of the best and most versatile directors in the world. His output varies from Sense and Sensibility, based on the Emma Thompson screenplay of the Jane Austen novel, to The Ice Storm, a Hollywood story of suburban sexual politics. Other Venice winners include Cate Blanchett for her role as the young Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.