Lust, Caution Critic Reviews

Lust, Caution is both a cannily constructed spy thriller and a grim kind of love story, but it harbors no illusions about the transformative potential of either revolutionary violence or sexual passion.Read the full review

Lee is a true master, and his potently erotic and suspenseful Lust, Caution casts a spell you won't want to break.Read the full review

The sex is REALLY hot. Not hardcore pornographic (at least by my definition of the term) but close.Read the full review

A brooding meditation on the unnerving power and terrible cost of emotional and political masquerades, the Chinese-language Lust, Caution gets under your skin with its examination of what qualifies as love and what does not.Read the full review

Though Lust, Caution resounds with these disconcerting themes, it operates on the same principle that distinguishes all lasting romances, be they "Wuthering Heights," "Casablanca" or "When Harry Met Sally."Read the full review

Film by film, Ang Lee, from Taipei out of the University of Illinois, has become one of the world's leading directors. This film was his second Golden Lion winner in three years at the Venice Film Festival. But it is not among his best films. It lacks the focus and fire that his characters finally find. Less sense, more sensibility.Read the full review

But reserve dampens the passion in Lust, Caution, his beautifully mounted but rather unmoving film. It feels surprisingly cold, despite this erotic thriller's ultra-explicit sex scenes.Read the full review

Stylized and visually arresting, with intense sex scenes that earned the film an NC-17 rating, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution is an immersion into another time, place and mentality.Read the full review

Sumptuously produced and beautifully visualized, this is a filmmaker's meditation on the culture that nurtured him. As a piece of entertainment, however, it's hoist by its own paradox -- an almost thrill-free thriller that seems seductive, yet stays resolutely remote.Read the full review