色戒
I first heard of the name Ang Lee as a director when the movie the Wedding Banquet was on. I also noticed his other movies such as Sense and Sensibility and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but I started admiring him after I saw the movie Brokeback Mountain. Plus, in the name of Eileen Chang, I longed to see the movie Lust, Caution for months. I was even about to devote a special blog entry on its first showing night. (well, I didn't. Not because I was not crazy enough, but I was lazy enough. Haha!)
On this Wednesday night, I finally watched it with my friend. With two coupons which her friend's friend got from purchasing Dior's cosmetic products, we got to the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, which was one of the two authorized theaters to show Lust, Caution in New York City, and found out that the theater did not accept the coupons. The cinema was small yet its tickets were not cheap. Nonetheless, we saw the movie.
I have to say "Bravo" for Mr. Lee's delicate portrayal of the main characters. The lighting contrast with a mirror vividly reveals the loneliness of characters. He creates many clue to the audience. For example, Mr. Yee's vision reveals suspicion and the misery of having lipstick on a cup. The powerful love-making scene further heightened the love and hate relationship. Lost and found. Internal conflict. It was stunning! Their conflict became more dramatic at the Jewelery shop. Was that real romance? I was truly moved!
Oh, just a note that the main character Wang Jiazhi speaks various languages like normal spies, but I overheard that some audiences were not very clear based on the subtitles because they did not know the variation of Chinese dialects.
