Lust, Caution (2007)

Watching the NC-17 version, I have never seen such lengthy explicit sex scenes outside of porn. While framed beautifully, I’m not sure the exact purpose the length of these scenes offered to the narrative. The rest of this tale, set in China during the days of World War II, is similarly beautiful. Tang Wei is transformative in her lead role. She believably switches from shy college student who is a member of a patriotic drama club to worldly, seductive spy bent on assassinating an agent of the Japanese puppet government and back again several times over the course of the film. Tension is held throughout the film and there are incredible subtleties in the performances of each character as their expressions do and don’t bely their feelings.