Lust, Caution

Director: Ang Lee
Year Released: 2007
Rating: 2.0

A group of student revolutionaries during World War II decide that they need to wipe out traitor Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (one of the best actors alive) - who's working with the Japanese - so they send impressionable Wei Tang to seduce and destroy. Considering its tone of staid professionalism (Lee's forte), the graphic sex scenes (which earned this its NC-17 rating) arrive almost out of nowhere - after a very intense Leung gets finished pounding her (his taste for violent sex being a manifestation of his self-loathing, perhaps?), the movie returns to its humdrum, efficient self. I figured something was wrong when these revolutionaries couldn't wipe out him out in the first couple years (!) of hunting after him - hell, all of them combined have considerable difficulty dispatching one of his assistants with a knife. This is protracted and not very rewarding.