When Maurice is on his way for the city with his new invention (and horse), he gets lost i the forest. When he is trying to find a way out wolfs attack. The horse escape and Maurice runs into a castle. When he goes in, he find himself trapped again. In the castle lives a big beast an he's NOT happy with the new visitor, and puts Maurice in prison. Meanwhile the horse ran home and Belle (Maurice's daughter) make the horse led her to her father.

Beauty and the Beast is one of Disney's best movies, with humor and true love that will teach you not only to love the outside, but the person in other people. Are you more the the fun parts, you still won't be disappointed. Character like LeFou, Lumiere and Cogsworth makes you laugh time after time, and parents can also find them self laughing of the sweet Chip. And lets not forget the evil in this movie, and his name is Gaston. Not scary, but VARY selfish and he won't give up for the things he want (okay maybe that's scary).

So lets all sing along with the movie, and see it (again).


'Beauty and the Beast' is a classic love story that anyone will enjoy, whether you're a small child, a teenager, an adult, or an elderly person. It's a film that's charming, elegant, and sweet, not to mention funny. The songs are fantastic, and share the honor with 'Aladdin' and 'The Lion King' of having the best lineup of songs. I guarantee you'll remember at least three of them for years to come, including 'Be Our Guest', and the classic 'Beauty and the Beast'. The story follows Belle, a beautiful girl living in an rural area. She has always lived to assist her father, a desperate inventor who seems to be losing his marbles. When he goes off to an inventor's show and gets lost, Maurice's horse returns to Belle, and they set off to find him. Maurice is discovered in a colossal castle, filled with mysterious inhabitants, including the master, a fierce and horrifying beast. Belle persuades the Beast to take her instead of her father, and thus the story begins. Belle soon discovers there could be so much more to this beast than rage and hair (laughs). Filled with excellent actors including the late Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury, B&B is simply excellent, a beautiful romance that will attract any viewer to its unavoidable charm. As quoted in the song, it's a tale as old time, song as old as rhyme, Beauty and the Beast.

8/10 --spy


This is one of my all time favorite movies. The story is heartwarming, and beautiful. Kids will like it for it's comedy and memorable characters. Adults will like it for it's message that beauty is more than skin deep, and love can do miracles. Beauty and The Beast has some of the best music and scoring. Great voice performances, and beautiful animation makes this a really, really, really, really, really good movie. It is just really, really, really really, really, really good

In Conclusion:

The Second Movie of the Disney Golden Age, and One of the Best Films Ever Made.


From the opening music, I was engaged. By the first song, I was loving it. By 'Be Our Guest' I was dancing. By 'Beauty and the Beast' I was crying, and by the end reprise I was happy again. I challenge anyone who dares say that this film doesn't contain everything a musical needs: a touching romance, an evil villain prepared to ruin her romance, fantastic songs and an award winning score (very deservedly), believable characters with no wooden voicing (Angela Lansbury singing absolutely beautifully) and how many decent films have been made into a successful Broadway musical? Only with Alan Menken, Howard Ashman (and a little help from Tim Rice). It is also a dawning, as this is the only villain in any film that I have fallen in love with. Gaston rocks, and if he was real, I would marry him without a doubt. I don't care if he is an animated character: Gaston is a very, very, VERY sexy tenor, and if no one else is attracted, then you can go to hell!


It's interesting that for a time, the best music written for the stage was being introduced in animated features, mostly by Disney. This is one of the best and it translated well to Broadway. From the opening sequence of Belle, with her strong character, to the dancing household items at the Beast's castle, this has got to be one of Disney's finest productions. It has heart and soul. It has Gaston, a great villain, with a great song bearing his name. He is the epitome of male chauvinism. It is remindful of Miles Gloriosus in "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." The fairy tale plays itself out with delightful pacing. The beast is a complex being who has a second chance for rebirth and reconciliation. That there are forces in the universe makes this a positive film. The scare factor is there as well, with the thorny forest of the Beast, providing a barrier to all who dare enter. It shows that love can be easy, but true love without sacrifice is empty. Until the Beast knows this his lot will continue on. The songs are complex and varied, some of the best every. All the characters have purpose. This is an outstanding film.


I really cannot see why so many high-profile critics have such deep veneration for this film; so much that they include it in their "All-Time" lists. Surely they have seen many art films that are more profoundly affecting than this gorgeous, but (in the big scheme of the motion picture universe) somewhat slight animated flick. I am able to identify flaws in this diamond, this relic of my childhood, that I was blinded to by its light, but those will be elaborated upon later. I still love this film nevertheless, now that I am able to appreciate and articulate exactly why.

The opening sequence is still hauntingly beautiful, with the tracking shot from idyllic Disney forest to the gloomy castle's stained glass windows as the Alan Menken score smoothly segues in accordance with the changing visuals. The series of stained glass windows that tell of the selfish prince's punishment would make one heck of a picture book on their own, and David Ogden Stiers narrates with class and warmth. In fact, all the music in the film fits well with the visuals, and the songs are still quite catch. "Belle" works in enlivening, Broadway style, the morning gossip of the little town and the respective yearnings of Belle and Gaston,"Gaston" has a suitably chummy beer-hall mentality, and of course "Be Our Guest" and the ballroom-scene rendition of the title song are both grand by their own standards.

The characters are not particularly complex (hence the "slight"-ness of the film), but are still pretty well-drawn. Belle sees through the good looks of the chauvinist Gaston but is terrified at the Beast's appearance (of course, the fact that he locked up her father may be a factor in her fear), and is '90s empowered while being a romantic and a loving daughter. Odd-couple Lumiere and Cogsworth make good comic relief, as their rapport is rarely too immature; matronly Mrs. Potts and son Chip are also decently crafted objects (once human, of course). The Beast, menacing and then tender, has the two most touching moments in the film with his (SPOILER) sacrifice of possession of Belle and his merciful sparing of Gaston in the final battle, but his transformation into that unselfish being should have been more developed-here we come to the movie's flaws. (SPOILER END)

Gaston is effective as a shallow, egotistical fool and an obsessively persistent suitor, but attempts to make him a villain are rather contrived.(SPOILER)Let's face it, blackmailing Belle with the threat of her father's institutionalization is not really enough justification for Belle to call him call him a monster, and there is no reason why he could not be redeemed just like the equally selfish Beast was instead falling to his death like many Disney villains.(SPOILER END) Also, the themes of the film are not incredibly subtle, and there are those conflicting morals of the Beast's physical transformation.

Despite these flaws, I continue to prize the film while expanding my cinematic understanding by watching many others- I'll one day see the original French version of the story-, and I expect its Disney-style romanticism to keep my burgeoning cynical side in check with each future viewing. 9/10


I like Disney movies. Either they're a fanciful adaptation of a fairy tale, or if not, they are visually exciting. Beauty and the Beast is by far one of Disney's best. It's an adorable story with romance, comedy, and a little slapstick action. The characters are really well developed, particularly Belle, the Beast and the many implements of the house that play significant roles. They also provide the humor. The clock Cogsworth and the Candlestick Lumiere have a dynamic friendship with a brotherly knack for irritating each other.

The motherly teapot, voiced by Angela Lansbury, is the calm, steady minded member of the house, and more often than not she can sets things straight.

This really is a magical, beautiful film, almost more a work of art. I think it deserved it's best picture nomination.


Whilst far from perfect, this is a very good anthology of horror stories.

There is very little gore, but the stories build up a good atmosphere, and the acting is always of at least an acceptable level, and in the cases of Robin Bailey,Jean Anderson and Dora Bryan, it is actually quite excellent.

In the middle story involving people moving into a house, I actually felt quite creeped out, something that hasn't happened for years to me.

I would love to know the story as to how three short English tales ended up juxtaposed with the wrap around story of thieves stealing the tapes from a store, but whatever, it doesn't detract from the stories themselves.

The copy I have seen has washed out colours which somehow added to the bleakness, and this is shot on film it would appear, doesn't look cheap and nasty at all.

If you are a fan of brit horror, you must see this it's definitely a bit of a lost gem as far as I'm concerned.


I watched this film when i was about 14 and spent the next decade hunting for it after it became deleted, i recently came across it and watching it now i can appreciate it in its silly 80's glory! Bad acting, a jump from an American start where two guys steal some videos from a video shop and then hide away in a female friends flat to watch them. For some unknown reason all the films they watch are British and star some familiar faces of the time. All three short films have a kind of twilight zone type feeling to them, the grainy 80's backdrop for me made it more eerie than the typical horror you see these days, of all the short films it was the second one 'Dreamhouse' that got me...a woman seeing horrific images of people being slaughtered before her eyes in her new home, even going as far as calling in a medium, her husband thinks shes crazy and it has a very intense bloody climax that had me grossed out as a 14 year old but not so much as a 30 year old! Over all its a typically poor film, hence why it was possibly deleted, but maybe for a fan of the older stuff, or Hammer house of horror, this may be worth a watch.


As a teenager, my father and I would go to the local video store and rent a horror movie almost every week. After we got through all the flicks that we had at least heard of, we started on ones we never heard of. One of these flicks was "Screamtime." As stated, this film has three small stories in it. One was about a puppet that may or may not be killing people. This one is okay. The second story was about fairy's that protect this old ladies house and it was pretty dang good. The final one is the best though. It is about a family that moves into a house and the wife keeps seeing murded bodies that are not there. This one has a killer twist at the end that makes this movie worth finding and buying. You can normally get in on Ebay on VHS.


My brother and I rented this years ago. From the picture on the video box, we thought it was a ral bad, cheap thrills slasher film. Instead it turned out to be a suprisingly good anthology of British horror stories. Good british horror, very creepy and scary without being gory or violent, kind of 'quiet horror'. "Punch and Judy" is only okay, but the other two stories will give you some serious chills! THe only complaint I have about this film is the story-within-a-story concept about the friends renting this video and watching it, and seriously regretting it at the end of the videos. That was unnecessary and stupid. Good luck finding this film, though, I think it is pretty rare.


I went into watching this with zero expectations and came out really surprised. I love anthology style horror films and have been searching for the best ones for a long time. My personal favorites include Creepshow, Cat's Eye, Tales from the Darkside, Asylum, Tales from the Crypt, Nightmares, The Willies, etc.. This movie manages to be funny and pointless in some parts and really scary in other parts. The wraparound story is so weird that you can't help but laugh at it. I think the scariest story is the second one about the couple moving into the old house. The way they built suspense and atmosphere was excellent and the end was a pleasant surprise as well. The first story wasn't very original but it was fun none the less. The third story was just plain bizarre but was by far the most original and creative out of the three tales. Overall I really recommend a late night viewing of this to anthology film fans. I think a DVD release would get this film the credit it deserves.


Two guys steal some VHS tapes (big box!!!) from an early 80s 42nd Street video store (they do a walk by a theater showing TABOO II with great flair) and head to a girlfriend's house to watch them. How is that for a wrap around segment? The first section deals with a Punch & Judy puppeteer who has to deal with his nagging wife and disobedient son. When they decide to split, ol' Punch comes alive to enact revenge for his master. The second segment highlights a young couple who move into a new house, where the wife begins having visions of a murder that may have happened there. The is the best of the series and features an excellent ending. The final segment is about a broke biker who takes a job tending the garden for some old ladies who insist it is guarded by fairies. Kinda blah with this last one. Back in NYC, our petty criminals finish the flicks and get their just desserts.

A pretty good British anthology-by-force with three random short films strung together with a NYC lensed wrap around. The film proper lists one Al Beresford as the director here, but the IMDb reveals that is a pseudonym for Brit helmers Stanley Long and Michael Armstong, who both a have a history in the softcore UK sex comedy scene. Anyone know this history of these shorts in the UK? And who added on the NYC wrap around (which works in the requisite nudity and captures early 80s NY well)? I would definitely recommend this for the first two segments, which are quite well done.


This is an anthology of three tales in the same vein of Creepshow, Torture Garden etc, set in England and starring some known English TV actors like Robin Bailey and Dora Bryan. It begins in New York City with two hoodlums visiting a video store and stealing some video tapes. When they get home they watch each one, which tells its own story. The first one, Punch and Judy, is about a puppeteer with seemingly lifelike puppets. The second stanza is the best one, a family move into an old house and start to see strange visions. The ending of this one is surprising and effective. And the last one has a guy visiting two old ladies who want him to do some odd jobs. What he tries to do is burgle them, but the garden gnomes have over ideas. I have not seen this film for a long time but the middle story stayed with me for a while. It is a bit of a sleeper and hard to find, but check it out.


no I really don't like this movie, it could have been better, I guess. it's a cool story, and yes, the acting rules, but there's almost no music, and I've seen all of it before. put this film in the trash. do not rent this movie, it's not worth to waste your well earned money!!!


What a movie. I saw this movie yesterday and I'm still thinking about it. Tony Leung is just awesome. I had seen him in a few movies, I'd already determined that he's a great actor. I have no problem understanding what's going on with him without reading the subtitles because he communicates so much with his eyes. So watching him in this I was curious to see that something else was coming across than you'd normally expect. Here he's playing against type and I thought he did a wonderful job. Definitely Oscar worthy. As is his costar, who I kept trying to rack my brain for a film I'd seen her in but apparently she's a newbie. You'd never know it from her performance. It's a true leading performance since she carries most of the film being in just about every minute of it. She's great. And how great was it to see Josie Packard (Joan Chen) again. :)

Ang Lee is a genius. He's so good at capturing the emotions of his characters and actors. It's like he unfolds them so that everything on the inside is laid bare. From The Ice Storm to Brokeback Mountain to Lust, Caution he shows you real people and how they love and damage and betray each other, and more specifically how it feels. That's true talent. Anyone can point a camera. This is something else entirely.

The film itself is the best espionage film I've ever seen, but that's not all it is. It's very much like a noir and a war film and romance is probably the genre that is represented least. I've read a few reviews mentioning love and falling in it. There is some of that but I think maybe those people might want to give this one another go. They might have missed the point.

Who should see this? Adults. But I'm not saying that because of the sex scenes. I'm 33. I don't know if I would have completely grasped the emotional complexity of this film 10 years ago. I think you need to have been kicked around a bit by life to fully appreciate what's happening here. Anyone who likes old movies, sad movies, good movies. Bogart fans, noir fans, costume design fans should all enjoy it. I sincerely hope it gets some recognition around Oscar time. It's my favorite this year so far.


When I saw LUST CAUTION yesterday I wasn't sure what to think. There were moments of transcendence and many others of what, at the time, seemed like tedium. I was frustrated that I couldn't decide if this was a masterpiece right away as I was with BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, THE ICE STORM, and CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON. When I woke up this morning I couldn't stop thinking about it. It has haunted me all day and I want to see it again. Perhaps my expectations were so high that I had trouble appreciating what I was watching. More than likely I was anticipating the already notorious sex scenes. In any case LUST CAUTION is another masterpiece by Ang Lee that may take time for some to appreciate it. Years to come it will be studied and watched compulsively. It will strike debate among cinephiles of its worth. Most importantly it will be a film to be treasured, perhaps not by many, but by a very enlightened few.

During the sex scenes I was holding my breath. Lee's slow burn toward these instant classic scenes was like foreplay leading to an explosive climax. Lee's themes of repression and double lives continue in LUST CAUTION. I look forward to savoring and arguing about this film for years to comes.


I resent that this movie is marketed as an "espionage thriller", or that it's a thematic follow- up to Brokeback Mountain, or that it got an R rating for its graphic sex scenes. It is much more than that. It is a film set in Asia, by an Asian filmmaker, with a special resonance for Asian moviegoers.

I think this is a very personal film for Ang Lee - betraying his private thoughts on his homeland, on sexuality, on truth, on love.

Here in Asia, one shared event in our history binds us all - the Japanese occupation during WWII and all the horrors that came with it.

To retell the anguish of that time through a torrid affair between a collaborator (traitor) and a spy is a brave commentary on how we Asians respond to traumas both personal and collective.

Mr Lee raises unearths some complex emotions towards identity and truth, as revealed in only the most intimate moments between illicit lovers in times of extreme duress.

That Lee chose to make such a film after his phenomenal success in Hollywood, and during this period of phenomenal progress for modern China, gives Lust Caution a heightened sense of relevance and urgency, a film that can potentially invite questions on what it deeply means to be Chinese, to be Asian.

Lee is a master, Tony Leung is divine, Tang Wei is a slow-burning revelation. I highly recommend this film to Asians and non-Asians alike.


A wolfhound brings out what Ang Lee so called "amuck atmosphere." This might not necessarily be Eileen Chang's intention, but Lee achieved his practical "masterpiece" through expressing his feel for this short story.

Just right before the task seems about going to end, Wang Jiazhi memorized, from an innocent college girl to a highly skilled actress and patriot, this extremely dangerous ambition kept circling around her mind and couldn't possibly go away may because of her ideal of doing something big and important, may because of proving that she's not only a puppet, or may because of a man that she can't get him out of her head.

A terrific ensemble cast. Tang Wei, who played the soul of the film, transformed herself into the leading character successfully through an unfamiliar face to audiences and has the acting of unattached perfection just like Zhang Ziyi. Though she got set up to get involved with this role by Lee, the result shows that her efforts worth every second.

The best performance of Tony Leung by far, every look and movement is very precise. Though it's also postmodern and the same kind of costumes, the effect is totally different from the images in Wong Kar Wai movies. Even he has been through several villain characters, the devotion and outcome that he put in this role is never been seen before.

As for the controversial sex scenes that gather all the spotlights, they all take important places in the film just as Lee said. Even there's no sign of sex in Chang's story. Except the power demonstration of the leading male role, Mr. Yee, Wang learned to use her sex power, the abreaction from the huge frustration of both their occupations and the struggle and joy they soaked in the functioning sex. They could very likely be the perfect match for each other that they can never find another one in this lifetime.

The second-time Mexican cinematographer for Lee, Rodrigo Prieto, French musician Alexandre Desplat, the senior Korean designer Lai Pan, and Lee's longtime partner editor Tim Squyres. The global combination achieved the great technical support besides the compelling story and the feast of performances.

The funny part is Lee chose short stories back to back for his film. The time line of the previous one goes across over 20 years. As for the latter one is just an afternoon. Sure it seems like a story in a decade, but after all they are the flashbacks of the leading female role.

This movie definitely goes beyond the achievement of "Brokeback Mountain," which is already very brilliant. While showing the conflict of sense and sensibility, it also pays tribute to a bunch of classics and the master creators which reflect the mind of the roles and are inherited such as "Casablanca," "The Godfather," "Suspicion," "Penny Serenade," "Last Tango in Paris" and "In the Realm of the Senses." This is not only the best screen adaptation of Chang to date but also a must-see of all time.


...well worth seeing. I had the pleasure of seeing this film tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival and it was a delightful experience (not to mention I was about a foot away from Tony Leung and Ang Lee).

So as I have written in the title, the film itself may appear to be a bit flawed to most viewers. One of the consensus main complaints was that it was too long and drawn out (157 minutes is no joke, especially with a few ice teas in you from dinner). However, I believe the story was well paced and needed the full length of the movie to fully develop. There were not many scenes that could have been easily cut out. It was also not nearly as slow as some other films (i.e. In the Mood for Love) or as long as other films (i.e. Once Upon a Time in America). Overall, I felt the movie flowed quite naturally and was focused on the storyline, although I went into the movie expecting a loose meandering plot line (as some other reviews have suggested).

Another complaint was that the sex scenes were unnecessarily long, prolific, graphic, and even violent (there was a rape scene). Again, I disagree with these complaints because I felt like these were the scenes that really brought out the lust in the characters. This was especially true for Tony Leung's character, whom many viewers seemed to feel was underdeveloped and one dimensional. As my friend said, "Tony could have done this role in his sleep." True, but that was the whole point of his character. Ang Lee purposely left his character undeveloped for most parts of the movie except those few sex scenes, a particular scene in a Japanese whore house, and the closing scene. Those were the few scenes that made Leung's character vulnerable and human. Because there were so few windows that allowed the audience to glimpse into his character, that made the emotions all the more realistic and powerful. The violence in the rape scene should also be addressed. Again, this was one of those rare scenes that shows Leung's character as human (although it was a very brutal, violent side of him). Here, he appeared angry and frustrated, and not at Tang Wei's character but really more at himself and what he has turned into. He was portrayed as a traitor in the movie, and he never spoke about how he viewed himself except for the scene in the Japanese brothel, when Tang's character asked him if he took her there so she could be his whore. He responded that he took her there because he knew much more about whoring oneself than she did, obviously referring to his political role as a traitor. Thus, through minimal dialogue and character development, Ang Lee was able to depict Leung's character with great insight and accuracy, all the while reminding us that he was still human on some level.

Now although Leung's character development was sacrificed for the benefit of the film, Tang's character development was actually enhanced. Make no mistake, she was the central character of the movie, and it was very interesting to follow her metamorphosis from a young, naive university student to a spy for the resistance force in bed with the enemy. Once again, Lee revisits his theme of lust and how powerful it can be during her character development and especially the sex scenes. There was a scene after she finished having sex with Leung and goes to report to her superior officers. She then describes to them how she must endure and pretend to love Leung wholeheartedly as a part of her role, and how she endures the prolonged sessions of sex only to hope for them to crash in the door and shoot Leung in the back of the head to have his brains and blood splattered all over her body. All in all, it was a very notable and powerful acting job on Ms. Tang's behalf and definitely refreshing to see a younger actress take on a serious role like this and really tackling it.

There were also some lighthearted moments sprinkled throughout the film, which had an excellent score to accompany it. The cinematography, costumes, scenery, etc. were all first rate. The real meat of the film, however, was within Ang Lee's direction, Tang's acting, and of course, the intense sex scenes that powerfully depicted lust, no holds barred, with anger, frustration, hate, and all the other negative emotions associated with it. Interestingly enough, the only moment in the movie where both Leung and Tang's characters felt a mutual love was not in bed, but in the Japanese brothel when Tang performed a song for Leung.

All in all this was a delicate and exquisite movie that was carefully planned and filmed, with attention to every detail. It offers a profound and in depth examination of lust. I recommend that everyone should experience the movie once, regardless of the 2.5 hours length and explicit sex scenes - it was well worth the time.


Excellent! Excellent! This film really injects the visual meaning of 'caution' throughout the film - at least till close to the finale. There are numerous instances when I was reminded of the film's appropriate title, "Lust, CAUTION"! Indeed, a remarkable visual achievement that cooks up metaphors to provide so much food for thought.

Two characters, who are supposed to understand the nature of their duties and responsibilities, gradually becoming suckers to their self passions and sentiments not unrealistic for the many who may recall the 1963 Profuma Affair that brought down the Harold MacMillan government in Britain, or even the Mark Anthony and Cleopatra tales! In this film, the supporting actors play very minor roles in the film. This actually impresses me more to make me consider that a person's downfall oft results from his/her weakness, especially in relation to his/her uncontrollable passion and sexual urge. Love is blind... as the saying goes.

The film's flashbacks are well crafted to introduce Mr. Yee and Jiazi and to focus on their persistent, strong and certainly up-to-no good, determined characteristics before they succumb to their sentimental temptations and passions.

The scenes of stylistic elegance of the Colonial Hong Kong being clouded by Japanese Occupation, and scenes of Shanghai with its bleak post-Qing Dynasty signs of chaos, together with the expected Second Sino-Japanese War terror, flow through the film at a good pace. The urban crowded characteristics of these cities, with their tenement-blocked living, marked with social and political upheavals and turmoil, and class exploitation are artfully exhibited - the allure and historical trauma of both cities so subtly revealed without over-shadowing the performances of Tony Leung and Tang Wei! It was certainly captivating to watch how this film celebrates Hong Kong's urban identity while also mediating its historical relationship with Shanghai. Just like with Mr. Yee and Jiazi, perils and pleasures of modern urban life are inescapable for the two cities.

Director Ang has also amusingly mixed Chinese sensibilities and Hollywood influences to give Shanghai that dangerously cool, and seductively sexy appeal that does help to raise question of the stake this city faces with the presence of Mr. Yee and Jiazi. After all, didn't Shanghai become a locus center of vice and degradation - a foil to the virtues of the countryside? Is the audience, at the beginning of the film, expected to see Mr. Yee and Jiazi as upholders of these opposing modern vs traditional traits, and as far as foreign occupation relates, the differences East vs. West colonialism? For fans of Zhang Ailing who authored the original story upon which this film is based, It's not difficult to relate some of the tragic incidences of the film to Zhang's very tragpersonal life. This film should especially appeal to those familiar with the 1940s history of Hong Kong and Shanghai, and to those who had experienced the inner turmoil, resulting from having to adapt to changing environments.

And I do enjoy seeing this film as an attempt to remind the audience how a couple, passionate in romantic love, often puts in their best performances and stylistic acts to impress one another (as portrayed by Mr. Yee and Jiazi). These love 'sparks' have a tendency not to exist with old married couples as seen in Mr. and Mrs. Yee's love relationship.


I went to Vieshow around 7:30pm and saw the schedule of Lust Caution was lighting in red all the way to midnight. It meant full house the whole night. It's kind of rare in my memory. Only summer blockbusters could have this strong performance, yet their ratings were not restricted! I didn't worry about my ticket. I already ordered on-line. Ang Lee, do make yourself at home. We all love you.

And I love the sex scenes. On bed, they use their body languages to show their emotions. Lust and caution are the basic tones, the skin, and what hidden beneath are hatred, anger, revenge, loneliness, redemption, and love. I have never seen so many emotions in scenes of sexual intercourse or lovemaking, whatever you call them.

I felt tense during the sex scenes which are indispensable for the whole dramatic arc. I didn't enjoy the lust part, and the caution undercurrent had my heart dangling. If I want to enjoy sex on movie, I would just go to watch porn. People who want to go for that very reason, be prepared to get disappointed.

I was also moved by those young patriotic students. By them, Ang Lee tells us he was once like them, and still is now, sending message to the audience through art, through culture, and with passion.

Ang Lee seems like to make movie with a lot of metaphors. You can see that judging from the movie titles. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not only an idiom, but also meant for the characters and more; Brokeback Mountain is a lost paradise as well; and Lust Caution, for that foreign audience would miss it again, by its Chinese title 色戒 we realize 戒 is also a pun. 戒 is Caution and the diamond ring Mr. Yee gives to Wang too.

The diamond ring, when the secretary returns back and says, "it's yours." "No," Mr. Yee says, "it's not mine."

I guess it means the diamond ring belongs to Wang. So does his love to her. For the first time, I didn't feel a diamond ring is so superficial like in the TV commercials.

From some reviews and news, I noticed Ang Lee and the crew changed Eileen Chang's assassination scene? If so, that is really smart. Anyway, I am going to read Eileen Chang's short story. I am always interested in comparing his films and the original stories or movie scripts. No exception. It's kind of Lust Caution intercourse I enjoy between Ang Lee and me.


Early in the movie, Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) gets asked to act in a patriotic play, in a time when China was threatened by the Japanese Invasion during the late 30s/early 40s. Little does she know that she's got to carry on acting the rest of her life, together with her group of idealistic young dramatists, as stage feelings stirred up real emotions that calls for the sacrificial of self for the greater good, for the country. What they lack in experience, they make up with their youthful passion and exuberance. And their rawness shows in the way they clumsily set up their traps for the coming of the prey, and fumbling even with their first blood.

Welcome to Lee Ang's world of espionage. It's not glam, and gets draped in many real world sense and sensibilities. We enter a world where Trust and Loyalty are difficult to come by, and with shadows lurking in every corner, waiting to pounce at the slightest of mistakes. But the darkness is beautifully captured, and like its endless rounds of mahjong, you're waiting for that perfect tile to come your way, for the opportune to present itself, for the East Wind to come about. That's how this movie's espionage theme is played out, with plenty of waiting. Instant results and instant gratification do not come easy, and even the finale I found to be less than satisfying, though it provided subtle avenues to keep your imagination running as to how the turn of events have greatly affected the usually cautious Mr Yee (Tony Leung).

Like the movie, Leung's Mr Yee remains an enigma we are trying to have a crack at, trying to, like the rest, understand his secret life. He sneaks around from fort to fort, always with protection, and has this solid wall build around his personal life, that even his wife (Joan Chen) finds hard to break, and letting it be anyway, enjoying luxurious life as a tai-tai. All we know about Yee, is that he's a Chinese traitor in the employment of the Japanese, while enjoying immense power under the protection of his master, readily bolts like a running dog that he is in the first signs of trouble.

Enter Tang Wei's Chia Chi, in a strategy hundreds of years old, and that is to use the lure of the beauty to provide the downfall of powerful generals. As a fresh faced ingénue, she enters the dangerous cat and mouse game at great personal sacrifice, probing cautiously (that's the word again) into the life of Mr Yee, and casting those come hither eyes as bait to lure her prey, relying on others to provide the finishing blow and save her from his evil roaming clutches. In order to enter his circle of trust, she has to play to the sadistic sexual fantasies (you see, I don't think he gets any from Mrs Yee anyway) of a repressed man using her as an avenue to release those pent up rage and frustrations from work, where his job as we know is to interrogate fellow countrymen. It's not a glam job, especially when you're casting your lot with the underdogs.

Lust, Caution is a tale of two lonely people, forced by circumstances to do what they have to. One, to fulfill her ideology and get rid of possibly one of the most dangerous man to the Chinese, while the other, looking for honest companionship. It's falling for and sleeping with the enemy both ways, and in a time where trust is hard pressed, this makes everything more complex, especially when it comes to irrational emotions that overrule logic and guard. It's layered with plenty of betrayals whichever way you look at it, and the narrative kept pace by unfolding each

layer intricately. Which makes it ultimately a very sad love that couldn't be story, the perennial fib to reality.

Tony being Tony, I can't help but think that with his hair slicked back, and his stoic demeanor in well pressed suits, look the more vengeful version of his Mr Chow from In the Mood for Love, though this time round he really gets it on with another married woman Mrs Mak, Chia Chi's alter-ego. He might be sleepwalking through his role here, as he speaks very little and does even less, but comes alive in his scenes toward the end. LeeHom is rather wooden though as the de-factor youth leader, and his romantic moments with Tang Wei just falls flat given that it's not fully developed here, if not for the focus of love between Mr Yee and Mrs Mak.

Like how Lee Ang shot Zhang Ziyi to prominence with her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a headstrong young woman who comes of age, Tang Wei snags a role as such and it wouldn't be much of a surprise should she gain acclaim and recognition for her role here. She switches between the greenhorn student and one who's living a lie quite easily, and she exhibits linguistic skills (English, Cantonese, Mandarin and even Shanghainese) and even talent for song. Watch those eyes of hers, and her rant during breaking point, excellent stuff.

Lust, Caution is an espionage story that works, and being set in a tumultuous era helped loads in the eagerness and sense of urgency required, and how patience in getting everything set up for that one shot one kill opportunity makes it a constant tussle, both for the characters, and how events get played out.


With a sensational cast of actors and a tale of China in the late 1930's under occupation, LUST, CAUTION captures the cruelty of the period with a zest and cinematic journey which enraptures the audience in a tale of revenge-and love. Bravo, Ang Lee, for bringing to the screen such a lustrous tale of Chinese history in which you have also thrown in love scenes which bring to the film an element of cruelty and harshness which are reminiscent of the sexual pleasures of BASIC INSTINCT, but perfectly display the brutal character of Mr. Yee.

The costumes, sets, lighting and the drama of the story make LUST, CAUTION a simply elegant journey with characters that jump off the screen with fury, passion and of course, love tinged with revenge. The film is long, but you can't take your eyes away from the film for one moment as you might miss the brilliant dialog and performances. LUST, CAUTION, makes you think of what it is to be occupied by a power that treats its captured denizens in a world of anger and bitterness and creates a world of hatred and revenge as we see in this intelligent and important film. May LUST, CAUTION continue to gain an audience as it heads into the Kudo season.


I had been hyping myself up a great deal for Lust, Caution ever since I first heard of the project, so I'm glad to say that it did not disappoint. The film was a beautifully executed "espionage thriller," if you want to go with how it's being marketed to a broad audience. Steeped in the historically and culturally turbulent period of the second Sino-Japanese War, one must applaud Ang Lee for the dizzying array of minutiae he oversaw as director.

Because of the nature of the film's protagonist Wang Jiazhi (played by a newcomer named Tang Wei - not shabby for your first feature) as an agent working under a second identity to ensnare a dangerous collaborationist (Tony Leung), all the scenes where Wang masquerades as the bourgeois Ms. Mai are fraught with a psychological tension, doubling with the political agenda at stake as well as her womanhood. She portrays both roles with heartbreaking deftness; a great casting choice if there ever was one. While not as physically alluring as some of her competitors for the role - Chinese language actresses including Zhou Xun and Shu Qi - I don't think anyone else could have pulled it off like Tang. She convincingly transforms herself from a naive college girl to coy seductress...and back again.

The film struck quite a few personal nerves on my part too. While mainstream cinema should be, you know, self-sustaining or whatever you want to call it, there's really a lot to this movie that gets lost in subtitling to an extent, but also just in context and culture. Etiquette at the mah-jongg table; the omnipresent yet understated background of wartime occupation; political interests in the Chinese Civil War era; the weight of regional identity in dialects and interpersonal relationships. Tang Wei spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, and Shanghainese. My only thought is: What a hottie.

The sex scenes are...something else. As echoed by most critics, they serve the story perfectly in capturing the urgency that Tang and Leung have in their precarious affair. There's a lot of violence in them, and it is through these carnal and savage acts that Tony Leung's Mr. Yee character is established as a very dangerous man. I won't spoil too much but there were several times when it became too difficult to watch.

There were quite a few moments that made my heart flutter and eyes wobble. I'll just leave it at that.


Many people already wrote the plots of "Lust, Caution". I don't repeat again, I just have a few words here...

I have read many reviews from the professional film critics. Some are extremely insulting, and those people didn't understand the film at all. I felt sorry for Ang Lee and all people who worked hard for the film.

"Lust, Caution" is a pure Chinese drama with the bloody China-Japan war and the Chinese cultural context of 1940s: slow pace, old Shanghai, mahjong, the traditional song, hatred, love, loneliness, and the souls of students and traitors.

Do not forget the cultural differences: Western people play the card games; Chinese people play the mahjong games. I don't know either, I always see the body languages of the players.

I personally dislike the raw sexual scenes, however, the film is still a masterpiece!


Too long, too slow, too self-indulgent, and too brutal in its graphic sex scenes, Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is a film not to be missed.

Whatever misgivings there may be about it, this festival-winning film is a mesmerizing, rich experience. After 2 1/2 hours of being bombarded with a World War II love-and-hate story that's both exciting and dragging, chances are you will be still pinned to your seat, anxious to find out how it ends.

The "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Brokeback Mountain" director has turned his attention to war-threatened Hong Kong in 1938 and Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1942 (complete with a "safe Japanese zone"), seen through the eyes of a group of young Chinese resistance fighters.

Based on the late Chinese-American writer Eileen Chang's short story of the same name, the focus of "Se, jie" is the relationship between Mr. Yee, head of the ruthless Japanese-collaborator security forces (played by Tony Leung, leading man of some 80 films) and a young actress with the resistance, played by Wei Tang, in her very first film role.

They make a strange pair, both in the roles and as actors. Of the story - a cat-and-mouse game between the seductress/underground agent and the Japanese puppet/lord of life and death among the occupied - the less said the better in order to enjoy the movie. As actors, it's a veteran facing a new challenge and a novice who shows great skill and assurance.

Leung has always been a brooding, symphathetic, worn-but-handsome presence, especially in his collaborations with director Wong Kai War. Here, for the first time, he plays not just a heavy, an ugly character, but a scary, unhappy, murderous man, literally a dark figure, lurking in the shadows. It's a great performance, fully realizing both aspects of the character: the monster and the man.

Lee's love for the cinema classics is shown both in his use of excerpts from Hollywood greats (as the young actress frequents movie theaters) and in his creation of memorable images. This is a director with a painterly sensibility and the ability to transform objects into instantly memorable pictures. Never will you see mahjong again without recalling "Lust, Caution." Few of Lee's favorite classics can match the simple effectiveness of his final image here, of a sheet with slight depressions left by what rested on it shortly before: white on white, and yet meaningful and affecting.

Leung and Tang fairly monopolize the screen, but the rest of the large cast is outstanding, led by San Franciscan Joan Chang as Yee's wife, and the vivid individual characters in the resistance, including the American-born Chinese pop star Leehom Wang.


This film is about a woman enticing a top ranking official in the occupying Japanese government, in order to assassinate him.

I am very impressed by this film after just watching 5 minutes of it. The mahjong scene is very well made. Behind all the gossip, it has so much subtle tension. Everyone is secretly calculating another and planning their next move, both in the game and outside the game. Another striking thing that I noticed is that the panning motion of the camera. I am sure it is very tricky to get it right! A continuous shot of taking a piece of mahjong, then the hand of tiles, then throwing the unwanted one away. All done in one shot. It's really good camera work.

There is a lot of complex emotions, both expressed and implied. For example, Wang Jiazhi's pain of having to give up her virginity is skilfully implied. Later, her pain of being intimate with Mr Yee is expressed in a rage. The psychological games in the subsequent parts is well portrayed. Wei Tang is masterful in playing her role. She portrays a wide variety of facial expression and bodily gestures so naturally and skilfully. Her power of seduction is undeniable. The surreal atmosphere that she creates when she is Mai Tai Tai is stunning. I have never heard of her before, and I hope she will get to play in more film in the future.

Despite the film being two and a half hour long, it did not feel like it at all. In fact, I am glad that Ang Lee gives us enough time to appreciate the beauty of the film. The plot is gripping, and there is a lot to be pondered on. Men have to caution against lust, while for women, they may have to caution against something else. I will no reveal it here, watch the film to see for yourself.

This film is a beautiful masterpiece. Just a side note, the sexuality in this film is so extremely the polar opposite compared to Ang Lee's last film "Brokeback Mountain". I find this very interesting.


After watching the preview of "Se--Jie", I was so shocked and felt really really awful !! Being Mr. Yee and Wang Jiazhi are so hard. Every scenes are so important and memorable and they can't stop appearing in my mind ! Tony and Wai Tang are really great and they could bring you into the movie. Both of them are poor and pathetic : Jiazhi was only 23 years old but she suffered such a miserable life that no one can imagine, she fell in love with a person that she shouldn't love. Mr. Yee was portraited as a cold-blooded person and he, in fact, is a true human with love. He had to keep himself alive so he helped the Japanese. I am sure he didn't want to (He hated Japanese actually)!! He loved Jiazhi and bought her a ring as a commitment but soon discovered that his true love is a spy.

All characters in this movie were so selfish, including those who called themselves as patriots. They all have some kinds of intentions like making revenges. I really hate that guy who burnt Jiazhi's letter, he is a LIAR !!

Jiazhi devoted herself into the love of Mr. Yee that she chose Yee rather than her first love and let Yee ended her life (she could have taken her pill). I don't know if her purpose for letting Yee killed herself is making revenge or putting a tattoo of love in Yee. She had the chance to kill Yee while having sex with him but she didn't and she refused to kiss her first love, Kuang. She might not realise her love to Yee but she knew it when receiving the ring from Yee whose eyes are full of love.

Yee was a lonely and insecure guy that he hardly could find someone to talk to and finally he found one but the wrong one......

Love is so terrible that it makes people doing things that are unpredictable......

The movie was great but not perfect : Ang failed to convey the anger of being occupied by the Japanese - He tried to emphasize it but not strong enough. Also, the last scene of Mr. Yee escaped from the jewellery shop was so hilarious and was ruining the mood of the movie. (Maybe Ang intended to do it to tease at those people who cared about the lives and did stupid and foolish things) Ang is a genius in presenting the emotion and feeling of people. His new movie was not that disppointing as the media said. The media was so superficial to focus only on the sex scenes which were not as violent as it reported. The three sex scenes were not weird and I could truly experience the emotional change of Yee and Jiazhi thru them.

I've watched almost all movies of Tony Leung - he is my five-star actor. Wei Tang is a talented actress and I really hope she would be more famous in the international stage.


Ang Lee's Lust, Caution got a lot of negative reviews in the US. I was shocked. I always thought Lee, of all people, could convey the nuances of Chinese culture to a Western audience.

I admit I love this movie, as I do all his work, except The Hulk. And I'm not implying you have to give it the thumbs-up because it won the Golden Lion. However, after reading dozens of reviews from mainstream media in North America, I have a strong feeling that most critics failed to understand the movie - not only the subtleties, but even some of the plot. Of course, the two are often interconnected.

Rex Reed of The New York Observer called Mrs Yee "silly" because he assumed she is oblivious to her husband's trysts with other women. This couldn't be further from the truth. From how she reacts to her husband's emotional breakdown in the last scene, it is obvious she is in the know. There are Chinese wives who feign ignorance of their husbands' affairs, and this is probably something an American film critic cannot grasp. Shouldn't she be throwing a tantrum? They might ask.

Rex continues: "Neither of the two stars look like they're having much fun." I wonder what movie he was watching. Of course they were not having fun. This is not a romantic comedy. The lady is scheming to kill him, and he is figuring out whether she is another beautiful assassin sent his way. They are both walking on razor's edge, which is not a fun activity.

Most critics call the movie a spy thriller without realizing the multiple layers of the story. It is mostly psychological, with the two leads constantly testing each other and using a language rich in undertones. Almost every line has so much texture it could take a few more lines to decipher.

Many see a resemblance with films of similar plots, such as Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and Hitchcock's Notorious. But they fail to see the link to previous Lee masterpieces such as Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain. Think of it. "Lust" is "sensibility" while "caution" is "sense". Both leads - and even some of the supporting characters - have to maintain a life of caution for self-survival. When they succumb to lust or passion, they pay the ultimate price.

The three sex scenes received such widespread misinterpretation that trimming them might not be the terrible idea it should be. People got so carried away with the S&M and acrobatic couplings that they forgot to detect the symbolic meanings. The scenes epitomize their relationship, from domination, to distortion, to harmony. That's something a simple head shot could not convey. And it does not necessarily imply the lady loves to be tortured. That would be the same as saying she is a gold-digger who falls for a precious diamond.

The definite moment when she falls for him is at the Japanese club when he reveals his weakness. (He has a hunch his future as a collaborator is doomed.) She has a soft spot not for his power and money, but for the latent humanity he finally lays bare. The big stone just confirms his feelings for her, in her mind.

American critics are quick to pick up the clues of Hollywood movies that appear in the meticulously portrayed old Shanghai and have found an allusion to Hitchcock's Notorious, but nobody seems to have noticed that Mr Yee's every move is watched by his secretary, who knows his lover's secret identity and will probably bring about his downfall.

Human emotions writ large can transcend boundaries. It is the niceties that cause cultural misunderstandings.


I can't think of a more prevalent example of misguided trailers then Ang Lee's new piece Lust, Caution. I was anticipating a tale of romance and seduction between an older man and his mistress within Japanese occupied China. Wow, was that not even close. True those aspects are there, but the real story is so much more involved, stimulating, and unexpected.

After following his last Chinese language film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with two English language works, it is nice to see Lee go back to his native tongue. I enjoyed both Hulk and Brokeback Mountain for what they were, but neither touched his martial arts epic in terms of scope or success. When hearing about Lust, Caution, I was very much excited to see what he would do with it. Looking more like a Wong Kar Wai movie, (not sure I have the credibility to make that statement seeing as I've only seen the gorgeous In the Mood For Love), I was hoping to get a sense of the character pieces he had done early in his career that I have not yet been able to view.

If there is one thing that stays consistent through the works I have seen, it is his wonderful use of cinematography. With cameraman Rodrigo Prieto, (a man who has filmed works by favorites of mine Iñárritu and Cuarón), behind the lens, one could not expect less. After working with Lee on Brokeback Mountain, he once again shoots some stunning work. The framing is always perfect, many scenes use mirrors and glass to keep all the action on screen simultaneously, and the sexual encounters are displayed with the right amount of care and brutality necessary to get the point across on what is happening. This is one sticking point that has been gaining a lot of press around the movie. Does it deserve the NC-17 rating here in the US? Maybe. Nothing is more graphic than say HBO's new series "Tell Me You Love Me," yet it is more integral to the story. Many of the instances are pretty much rape, and that is something one should know going into it, in case it will deter your wanting to view the movie. However, the overall impact of what happens would not be even close to what it is had those moments been excised or edited. The sex between our two leads is the bond that connects them beyond the jobs they are doing. That physicality is what makes the final third of the film as heartbreaking as it is.

As I said before, though, Lust, Caution is not about the love affair been characters played by the great Tony Leung and startling newcomer Wei Tang. What we really have set before us is a tale of revolution, espionage, and maturing within the confines of a world at war. Tang is just a kid who finds herself the new star actress at her school. The theatre troupe she works with decides that they should do what they can for the resistance, which they are unable to fight in. After its director, played nicely by Lee-Hom Wang, has a chance encounter with an old friend, the troupe gets to the cusp of a dangerous situation. They soon find themselves way over their heads, trying to orchestrate an assassination of a Chinese man working with the Japanese as a traitor to his country. When the event that shows the culmination of their age and inexperience plays out, it is both unexpected and unavoidable. Either way, though, they have embedded themselves into the guerilla war and eventually find that they had no chance to turn back. Meeting four years previous to the film's conclusion at the back of their college theatre sealed their futures.

While at its core we are given a story very similar to last year's foreign sensation of espionage, The Lives of Others, it is shown very differently. Lee allows the story breathing room to ferment and go its course. Each "spy" grows up so much during the four year span of the film. Between the main two, Tang and Wang, along with Leung's traitorous, political general, the evolution of each is shown in its entirety. All three's motivations are clearly laid out and during the almost three hour runtime, the audience cannot become lost because they are shown absolutely everything. So, rather than build extreme tension between two people, like in the German film, Lee allows for a slow construction of backstory and relationship with all involved. All our principals grow together or apart based on what they allow themselves to do for the "good of their nation." No matter how good the story itself, the film would be nothing without its magnificent acting. It is Tang and Leung that carry the movie. With so many moments of silent expression between them and some tough to stomach scenes in bed, these two amaze. The emotions are always prevalent and the decisions they make never stray from character. Yes, their relationship is unconventional, but the bond they forge cannot be taken lightly. While the middle portion might seem a bit long and monotonous to a point, the finale is a feat of genius. From Tang and Wang's final look into each other's eyes and Leung's reaction to the clock's strike of ten, all you can think is how Lee let this story be told as it should. So, I guess while I chided the industry for their almost suicidal handling of foreign films, I do need to give them some credit for still letting us Americans, who don't mind reading subtitles, view them in their unedited glory. (Well at least some times, if this was a no name director and not Lee, I wouldn't have been surprised if the producers changed the ending and shaved an hour off.)


"Lust, Caution" is a picture of the power of tremendous forces on that which is ultimately unable to bear the strain: a picture of a tidal wave crushing victims, or of a hurricane ripping through buildings.

There have been many reviews of how this movie suffers in intrigue, and lacks in the typical Hollywood excitement and fireworks. *This is not simply a spy flick!* These reviewers might also observe a natural disaster and comment on how the buildings were all poorly constructed and the victims too weak to provide sufficient excitement and entertainment.

Tang Wei, Ang Lee & co have put together a brilliant depiction of a dark and haunting time when the common person was buffeted and often destroyed by the struggle between titanic powers, emotions, and ideas.

Tang Wei as Wang Jiazhi stands out especially as a perfect victim for the emotional and psychological blows that she suffers from the beginning to her last moments on camera. Floundering in the maelstrom of the time, Wang Jiazhi fights valiantly to grasp at something, anything to justify her existence. The sacrifices she makes and trials she endures become a dark and painful comedy of errors that will be even more poignant for those who can understand her predicament and the times Wang Jiazhi lives in. Each time, Wang convinces herself to plunge headlong into her endeavors:

********spoilers start***********

1. She sacrifices safety for the chance at love, achieving only a passing admiration and infatuation. 2. She discards innocence (with the worst possible candidate) for a patriotic cause, gaining only a bloody consolation for a lost prize. 3. She sells her inheritance for a chance to study, only to be forced to learn something she despises. 4. She suffers the unspeakable for a chance to complete a mission, only to be drawn in by the enemy. 5. Coming full circle, she compromises the mission for the hope of love and safety, throwing away life and the respect of friends in one fell moment.

*********Spoilers end**************

The failures of Wang Jiazhi pursuits are shocking to point of comedy at times, just as one might gasp and laugh coldly in near disbelief at extreme tragedy and carnage. However, Wang Jiazhi's story is one that would only be all too common in that day and age.

While the NC-17++ scenes do contribute to the raw and poignant artistry of the the movie, the storyline and acting is enrapturing in and of itself. The sophisticated and empathic audience is sure to find this film a winner that will haunt their thoughts long after more foolish viewers have lost interest.


I had a visceral reaction to this film. Not to the sex or at least not only to the sex. People do and probably always will make decisions in a time of passion be it political, moral, or sexual, that after a time of more rational thought they might not have made. That is what makes us human. This film is about the human condition. I thought it was amazing. I can understand how this film could be difficult to make. This film was at times painful to watch. Painful but well worth the uncomfortable thoughts in provoked.

From a purely artistic standpoint, I thought the photography was also beautiful and the images of the time and place were as good as any I have ever seen.


It is a film of a young woman's prowess and tragedy narrated with a flashback between two current sequences. In a mixed genre of adultery and espionage, the story is told in a unrestricted narrative in which the audience are disseminated with full information some characters don't have. Despite the unrestrictedness in the knowledge domain of the audience, tension mounts on when Jiazhi Wang (Wei Tang) embarks on her mission to assassinate her target as the audience are puzzled with the leads' staging and other diegetic hints on whether or not her identity is or will be exposed.

Director Lee packs the film with sex, a common element of the genre. Lee establishes Wang as a cool girl in the expository sequences by use of apathetic expression (actually a non-expression) under freeze staging. Down the plot, Wang apparently remains tough and firm in her mission, as revealed from her dialogues. Nevertheless, Lee portrays Wang's evolutionary attitude toward Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) essentially by use of the 3 sex sequences in which Wang behaviorally shifts from being passive to active. As a mirrored portray, Mr. Yee's calmness (and seriousness as well) is seen alleviated by his disclosure of his job to Wang in the last hour of the story. Lee in practice builds up a subtle, slow-paced escalation of passion and psychological mutation of both leads, culminating to the diegetic climax.

The carefully choreographed overt sex sequences, in a whole, are instrumental in portraying the evolution of subdued passiveness of Wang toward her target. The sequences witness Wang's gradual sentimental change from taking up a hunting job in fulfillment of her patriotic duty to the nation to an ever deepening voluntary enchantment with her target. Lee goes further from his "Brokeback Mountain" to enhance the degree of explicitness by bringing the leads' body/pubic hairs, Wang's underarm hairs in a close-up in particular, into mise-en-scene to connote the rawness and liberation of the couple's desires.

With the acts of excruciation and execution of spies brought off screen, Lee keeps violence to the minimum despite the blood shedding sequence in the Hong Kong apartment in an earlier plot. There is a slight change of cinematographic style in the film: fast cutting and swish pans at the beginning; slow cutting, static camera and occasional tracking from the middle to the epilogue. While both leads exercise caution along their ways in concealing their respective motives, rationality is, consciously and unconsciously, marooned by lust, the desire for love and sentiments, which eventually render betrayal and fiasco. The film is a narrative on the subordination of rationality to long suppressed emotion and passion.


Ang Lee's newest Chinese film is both poignant and shocking. It is this years masterpiece. Lee combines espionage with erotic love scenes, it's not the common pair in films nowadays but it works out for the best. Lust spans over the time line of 4 years in World War II torn Shanghai and Hong Kong. Tai Wei stars (in a near perfect performance) as Wong Chia Chi a young actress who is convinced to join the resistance with friend Kuang (Wang Leehom) to help seduce and assassinate Chinese traitor Mr. Yee (an amazing Tony Leung in an Oscar worthy performance). The film is incredibly detailed as well, and keeps your attention at each detail as well, whether it's mahjongg games with Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) or a mind-numbing love scene where Mr. Yee tortures Wong Chia Chi like most of the victims he interrogates.

The film became widely known when it received the dreaded NC-17 from the MPAA. In the screening I went to though, people seemed more shocked at the only violent scene in the film (that isn't mentioned in the films' rating) than the initially "controversial" sex scenes. The sex though was done tastefully, it was over the top, and it was heartfelt. Unlike most R-rated films nowadays.

While watching the film I was also drawn into the wonderful world that Lee created. It had the look and feel of a former utopia that was now a hellish war torn city. It almost gave the feeling that I was there with the people.

I can easily see this film getting an Adapted Screenplay nomination for the Oscars just like Lee's previous film the widely controversial 'Brokeback Mountain'. The film is based on Eileen Chang's short story with the same title. James Schamus and Hui-Ling Wang made a great script, the dialog moved the film forward gracefully.

Thanks to the MPAA though, a portion of the art-house audience won't be allowed to see this film. Take my word however, this film is worth getting a fake I.D. for.

I give it a 9 out of 10


I read a reviewer who said this film was neither thrilling nor sexy. I disagree.

1. It is a remarkable piece of Chinese film noir with all of the attendant censorship and governmental intrusion which typifies how that government rates and supports such films. Regardless of how famous a director is, it is still a laborious exercise in lavishly fawning over and entertaining bureaucrats

2. I have many nc-17 rated films which I buy because of the hype and controversy yet I did not focus solely on the sexual themes as I did on why the mistress/assassin reveled in the relationship and, secondly, why the mistress/assassin symptomatically betrayed the resistance at the slip of a lavish piece of ice.

I think that the agent provocateur stayed because she needed to. She was a sponge to a handsome, mercurial official who exhibited confidence, certainty, vulnerability. These qualities are powerful to women. She also continued because her involvement became pivotal to the success of the operation and I believe that she enjoyed her status within the "cell." The way that they hung on her every word. Perhaps, too, she secretly enjoyed the position of privilege in a city which was rife with poverty, struggle, destitution. He stayed because she represented a simpler, bygone era of women who did not question but complied. She was for him the ideal woman coquettish, sublime, and indifferent to his " business." Her betrayal is symptomatic of all people inferring that everyone has a price. Her price was the rock although she knew that in doing so would risk the lives of her compatriots. It is, I say, symptomatic because it seems that women become weak at the sight of jewelry.

As for the sexual encounters I understand why it was necessary. Both principals have terrifyingly dangerous jobs. She, avoiding exposure. He, separating his domestic civility with the incongruous terror of killing. Therein lies the tension. He for collaborating and reviling his duties and she for desiring the encounters and fulfilling her patriotic duty. The sexual intimacies were a way to vent pent-up, primal energies as both principals were involved in savage and indifferent occupations. In the same way that the well-to-do go to be dominated at niche clubs for a fee.

I did not like the chronological disruptions also.

I also felt that Ang Lee selected the right actress. She is adorable in the fedoras and flapper-esquire hats and period dresses. With the short bobbed hair and the cherubic, youthful appeal I felt that she fit seamlessly.

It is the sex that retails the movie but it is the story which frames it.


This is a brilliant film directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain). The protagonist of the film is the very attractive Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang) because of awkward circumstances up a resistances involved in dangerous espionage. The film begins with Wong Chia Chi joining a University theatre group involved in highly nationalistic repertoire during the nationalistic uprising in 1938 China. This was momentous time in China with the rise of the Mao's communist forces and the Nationalistic forces of China further complicated by the imminent Japanese invasion and World War 2. Wong Chai Chi also known as Mai Tai Tai begins to develop a relationship with a leading member of the group Kuang Yu Min (Lee-Hom Wang) but flees the group to Shanghai after she witnesses the group actually murder a Traitor to the nationalistic movement after she was goaded into luring him into a house. Furthermore she had to sexually seduce this victim after mechanically losing her virginity to one of the members of the group for training. This emotionally confronting experiences is devastating for Tai as she actually is very fond of Kuang this combined with the brutal amateur murder by the group were the major factors in her desertion of the theatre now turned resistance group.

The Japanese invade Shanghai and Tai's father flees to London and Tai is forced to fend for herself under cruel murderous Japanese occupation and their Puppet Chinese government. Three years after her separation from Kuang they are reunited in Shangai. Kuang easily recruits Tai in the organised resistance probably more due to her unrequited feelings for Kuang. Her Mission is to seduce Yee head of the Chinese Police of the puppet regime. Tai succeeds in seducing Yee and endures his cruel and violent sexuality for such a long period that she begins to develop feelings for the him and vice-verse. The explicit sexual scenes highlight the sacrifice that Tai makes and the cultural perspectives and are justified. A masterpiece!!


This certainly had a darker ending than what I was expecting. There are some nationalistic Chinese, whom with some influence, say its not historic. Further objections are raised by this group because of occupation. There wasn't enough evil occupiers killing Chinese. Well, so what? In the film, there is a line that makes it clear. While the Japanese had no problem slaughtering those that opposed them, however they were also human and scared as hell. Just because it didn't show lots of bad things by the Japanese, doesn't mean the film is a-historical.

The characters are well done. The sex scenes certainly weren't as graphic as I thought they might be. I have seen longer and more obscene sex in R and even PG-13 films than this. However, the sex seems to have been forced and more along the lines of rape.

The plot was very involving. The main character was trapped in a seduction that crossed so many lines for her that she breaks down near the end and bares the emotional scares before her comrades - describing the rape-like encounters. It isn't pretty to hear, but it shows how committed she is.

Overall, I believe this is a well done film. It is historical in many ways. Just because it doesn't show all the fighting doesn't mean its not historical. Most of the people involved in World War 2 never saw the battlefield. "A"


Okay, let's face it. Although this film is very lavishly photographed, and the set design is a treat for the eyes, 'Lust,Caution' (better known in Asia as 'Se,jie')is little more than a rehash (of sorts)of Paul Verhoeven's 'Black book' from last year (which in itself was a lift of the German film 'The White Rose',from several years ago). With all respects to Ang Lee,who bedazzled me with 'Brokeback Mountain','Eat,Drink,Man,Woman',and several other winning films of years past,has let me down a wee bit. The (obvious)plot concerns a group of student stage actors,staging patriotic plays,while plotting to assassinate a known political figure who sides with the Japanese, between 1938 until 1942. The group plans on using sex as bait to attract,then strike when he is not expecting it. 'Se,jie' as gotten some flack about the graphic,explicit sex scenes (which may or may not have been faked)during the seduction scenes. Although these scenes were somewhat important to the plot, somehow manages to pad out the film beyond it's two & a half hour,plus time block. Word is that Ang Lee had to cut a half hour for China (which has far more astringent censorship laws then Hong Kong). I'm guessing the cut version would have been a bit tighter than the current one. Still, it's not a total loss.


It certainly lacks a certain rhythm, that I was tempted to compare to Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for... but it still is an undeniably good movie ! I loved the costumes, the settings. Everything seems so accurate, it is always a pleasure with movies depicting the thirties... The actress wears these awesome dresses that I would love to have for myself, and Tony Leung is such a great actor ! I know it's a real pain, but I still have to write 4 lines of this comment for it to be submittable. I could add that the music, composed by a french composer is beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Michael Nyman's and Philipp Glass' for other movies, very voluptuous. But still I think there was something not very 'palpitant' about the movie: a certain slowness, a lack of suspense -I think- that I missed.


I am not a fan of Ang Lee. I hate crouching tiger and I do not want to talk about hulk. I am a fan of shanghai. The setting appealed to me. There is war, there is electric tram, there is cheongsum, there is nothing more i can ask for. The film is based on a famous novel of Zhang Ai Ling, so not much credit for the plot should go to Lee.

It was mature direction which stood out. It never look at my watch a single time while watching it. It shows experience and skill in how the story developed. I cannot think of any irrelevant or redundant scenes. Scenes like Yee Tai Tai meeting Mai Tai Tai and the six of them being executed were things we can picture and were cliché. Lee did away with these scenes.

Casting was another strength of Lee. Tang Wei is a like a ghost of the past. She should be living in the forties. She is too natural and no matter in what attire, she is stylish and elegant. I can never forget the look of Tony Leung during the last sex scene. Those sex scenes were battles. It made me pondered who was the prey and who was the predator. In a nutshell, it was good acting.

I gave it 8/10. One point missing for the lack of meaningful and powerful dialogues. Some lines could be improved on. The last point for emotions. It did move me a bit, but I thought with such a plot Lee can actually bring tears to my eyes. I believe there should be more character development on Mr Yee. There should be a scene of him interrogating one rebel in the middle of the film, rather than him describing it. After witnessing it, we can relate the manner of the interrogation to the sex scenes, which will make those scenes more powerful.

I was surprised by the element of humour which was present in the film. Wrapping this up, it is something you should watch in the theater, not anywhere else.


Ang Lee creates another finely crafted movie.

Lust Caution takes place at the beginning of World War 2 in both HongKong & Shanghai, It was filmed in mainland China as well as Malaysia. His attention of periodic details, settings, costumes is amazing,we have seen many WW 2 films about life in China,most if not all of them were in rural sections, featuring the so-called peasant classes. This movie is about city people in well-to-do situations.

We start at a Mah Jong game between 4 women & we learn much. it then goes back 4 years & we find out one of the ladies was a student involved with some revolutionaries. It becomes imperative that she meets the husband of one of the other women.

The Husband superbly portrayed by Tony Leoung.(one of the leading international actors of today.

They begin an affair (which is reason for the NC 17) The sex scenes are very graphic.

It is a long movie almost 140 minutes, BUT it moves fast,

Many exciting scenes,with some typical humour of the times.

The subtitles are excellent & quite clear.

Ratings: ***1/2 (out of 4) 95 points(out of 100) IMDb 9 (out of 10)


NOTICE: I do touch on the plot, but not so as to spoil the movie...

This long and sensuous movie set in 1942 Shanghai during the Japanese occupation is centered on a beautiful and elegant young woman Wong Chia Chi (played by newcomer Wei Tang) who - with her platonic friend Kuang Yu Min (played by Chinese male hottie Lee-Hom Wang) - is a willing participant in a group of 6 young actor friends who, caught up in a frenzy of nationalism, hatch a naïve plot to kill a powerful and secluded Chinese traitor Mr. Yee (played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai).

As you might expect, Wong's part in this plot is to seduce Mr. Yee, and so, this story becomes a sizzling but dark story of a very dangerous affair of lust in the period in Chinese history where revolution is in the air but does not yet have China in its grip. In China's repressed sexual climate, the relationship between Kuang and Wong - for, of course, from the first he loves this dazzling girl  is a sub-plot that stirs in a real sense of pathos. An ominous pall  even a sense of dread - hangs over the entire story, and there is no hint of how it is to end.

The story is certainly a thriller and, under Director Ang Lee, it is a gorgeous movie, punctuated with those breathtakingly understated Chinese dresses and perhaps the hottest sex scenes you have ever seen in the movies, but it proceeds at an agonizingly slow pace and is steeped in the Chinese way. As such it will be controversial for Western audiences, but for me, I see this as adding to Ang Lee's mystique as a movie-making magician.


Ang Lee has the ability to transform simple stories about human relationships into epic films that somehow maintain the quality of intimacy and tenderness despite the grand sweep of his productions. In LUST, CAUTION ('SE, JIE') he has once again created a symphony of a film with a script by James Schamus based on the short story by Eileen Chang, assembled a cast superb actors who convey the story's multileveled messages on the historic backgrounds of World War II Shanghai and Hong Kong using the sensitive camera eye of Rodrigo Prieto and accompanied by Alexandre Desplat's evocative East/West musical score. It is a visual triumph, a fascinating recounting of China's history about which we know little, and one of the most intriguing love stories committed to film.

The film opens in Hong Kong focusing on a group of college students who form a theater group to present plays of 'significance'. Young Wong Chia Chi (the luminous Wei Tang in her first cinematic role) is asked to join the theatrical group and she consents primarily because of her attraction to the leader of the group, Kuang Yu Min (Lee-Hom Wang, a commanding and handsome actor). Events of history alter the purpose of the art groups and they become a Resistance force against the Japanese occupation of China. The leader of the Japanese sympathizers is a Mr. Lee (Tony Leung, one of the most solid actors on the screen today) and the student group plans an infiltration into his home and life by placing Wong Chia Chi into his household. In residence in Mr. Lee's home, she learns to tolerate the constant mah jong games with Mr. Lee's wife (Joan Chen) and her gossipy girlfriends, only to await the moment when Mr. Lee will notice her and hopefully begin an affair that will result in inside information espionage. As the effects of the war tighten problems the Yees move to Shanghai and the troupe follows them: the troupe has become a committed political resistance force with plans to kill Mr. Yee and the cadre of men who support his siding with the Japanese. Wong Chia Chi agrees to follow Mr. Yee's sexual advances and in short time they are caught up in powerfully erotic explosions of lust: it is during these very frank and very erotic lovemaking scenes that Ang Lee manages to reveal the inner aspects of each of these important characters, allowing the audience to see the complete picture of how lust can dissipate caution. The changes that occur between the two characters set in motion a surprising ending, at once disturbing and understandable.

Accompanying the DVD (already in excess of 157 minutes) is a 'making of' feature and a discussion period with not only Ang Lee but also with the stars and production people that is very solid commentary and for once seems pertinent to enhance the enjoyment of the film. Some may find the extended lovemaking scenes too frankly sexual, but so much of the real grit of the story lies in the non-verbal, purely physical language that could only be understood in the way Lee decided to film these gorgeous scenes. This is an important film on many levels and will probably become better appreciated with multiple views. In Mandarin, Japanese, Shanghainese, English and Hindi with subtitles. Grady Harp


One thing that THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE surely has is charm. Its theatrical device is as simple as effectivea public place as the crossroad of a humbled and derisory humanity, embraced by Saroyan's sympathy and sentimentality. The losers and the social debris gather there, under the indulgent look of a contemplative, cool and amused Cagney, doing an exercise in moral insights.

There's a month since a basically mysterious guy named Joe comes daily at a bar, stays all day, drinks champagne and spends money on all sorts of whims; and in that bar, I say, in that particular bar, he happens to meet all sorts of peoplethe bar fauna, they all seem to like him, or at least respect and obey him. Joe behaves like the quintessential bar sage. Occasionally, he helps others through their lives. He ceaselessly offers himself champagne, and sometimes cigars, following his own whims like a schoolboy.

Someone who has majored in American dramaturgy, or at least has read or seen over the years a large number of American plays, will correct me on this, but I believe that Saroyan's dramaturgy, like O'Neill's, switches on atmosphere and melody, beyond words, on an inner pace accessible to the intuition; with O'Neill there is, of course, so much more, he was ampler, more ambitious (--like, in Europe, in the same epoch, in cinema, the French poetic realism, which had this side of atmosphere and melody but also the cinematographic brio, etc.--), but Saroyan develops one side of this American theater. We are fortunate to have an adaptation with Cagney of THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE. I wouldn't call it mindbending dramaturgy, but a nice and friendly (filmed) play, not deprived of a certain charm; in his way, Saroyan turned Gorky upsidedown. Both O'Neill and Saroyan were middlebrow; but while the first was experimental, _avant_guarde, Saroyan was popular and plain, so they're not really alike. Wouldn't Mme. McCullers be a basically highbrowminded authoress, I would call THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE a cross between O'Neill and Mme. McCullers.

THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE stylizes the conventions of popular realism, moreover, being a play, its realism can not but be that of a play, that of a theater, which is, a highly artificial product; a likable and interesting movie, atmospheric, with an inner melody and pace, often comic, also of a certain sentimentality and selfawareness, its unsubtle style has charm and appeal.

It's not the subject as such; it's the approachthe filmed play shows sympathy for the small people, for the disinherited and the marginal, for the pariahs.

In my childhood, I loved a page of Saroyan's prose. His strength remains the sympathy people, as mixed with sentimentality and populism as it is.

Paul Draper as the tapdancer and Jimmy Lydon as the anxious lover make the most out of their roles.

Artistically, J. Cagney was only the tip of the clan iceberg; he had a brother and a cute sister also in the movies.

This movie has been produced by William Cagney; to complete the Cagney clan, the sexy Jeanne Cagney has a supporting part. Physically, she reminds me of a blonde woman, a curvy delicious blonde I loved 15 yrs ago.


This highly entertaining movie is about an assortment of odd ball characters who hang around an ordinary bar. There is no need for scripting the characters. They come as they are. There is a woman who hides a sordid past by claiming to have been a burlesque dancer for royalty. There is a mysterious professor who hangs around the bar all day reading the paper. There is the dancer/comedian. There is a guy who plays a marble/pinball game all day in hopes of reaching the stage where the machine lights up and spits out flags and sparklers. There is a not too bright, but lovable man who hopes to have enough money to marry the burlesque dancer.

All in all this is very entertaining movie. The two most gripping characters are a former cowboy who spins tall tales. At one point, he claims to be 59, but then tells about his experiences across the U.S. that happened over 70 years ago. There is also one of the scariest, meanest mobsters ever portrayed. He looks so purely mean and plain that it is scary. I recommend this movie. It has all the appearances of being the original "Cheers".


Nick's Saloon, Restaurant and Entertainment Palace sure attracts some strange and eccentric characters, some looking for work and others just looking for something to help them pass away the day.

There's something that proves surprisingly charming about this film. It's offbeat, doesn't quite seem to fit with the time in which it was made but there's just something here that tends to endear this movie to the viewer, especially on repeated viewings and to be honest, I found quite a bit of humor in it too. Perhaps it's because its eccentric characters seem to ring true in more ways than one as they often seem like just the unexpected offbeat sort you just might have run into in a place like Nick's in said time and era. Maybe it's because offbeat eccentrics certainly are not a rarity in today's world and it becomes easy to relate to events here, strange and bewildering as they often are. James Cagney steals the show as Joe, whose hobby is people, in a role quite atypical for him but really it's the collection and interaction featuring all involved that grabs your interest.


This is a nice unusual little film; more entertaining than I ever suspected it would be based on the reputation of the Saroyan play and what I've heard about the film version over the years. This film doesn't have quite the "spit and polish" we expect from films with major stars in the 1940s, probably because it wasn't produced by a major studio as far as I'm aware. However this is a good thing in some ways, as the film feels a bit more free to be what it wants to be than most studio adaptations. For example the credit sequence at the beginning is very charming, listing the hobbies and habits of the primary characters in theatrical style  Joe (James Cagney) is described by "whose hobby is people", McCarthy (Ward Bond) as a "blatherskite", Krupp (Broderick Crawford) is a "bewildered policeman" and so forth.

Maybe a lot of people over the years have seen nothing but a reflection of his TV work, but I thought William Bendix was very impressive as a man who is at the same time savvy enough to run a saloon in the waterfront district of San Francisco and charming enough to be believable as a family man. James Cagney's work is remarkably fresh as well, a complete departure from a lot of his tough guy roles that we usually saw him in. Jeanne Cagney, his sister, is far better suited to her role, a melancholy dance-hall type who forms an attachment with Joe's best friend Tom (Wayne Morris) than she was as the femme fatale in the more widely seen "Quicksand" opposite Mickey Rooney. All the characters are developed in such a way that we empathize with them even though some are a bit absurd, such as the dancer who wants to be a comedian but just isn't funny (played here by Paul Draper and on Broadway by Gene Kelly) and a black man (Reginald Beane) who's astonished at the mere idea of being paid to play piano. Everything is done in a style that's not even remotely naturalistic but which somehow manages to convey some real insight into human behavior  it reminds me of the old saying "Live in the skin you're in" and there's a sign on the window of the bar that's the first thing we see in the film that expresses much the same sentiment. The acting is designed to accentuate this feeling, almost a literal "slice of life." As Joe says in perhaps the film's one attempt at a profound statement: "Living is an art, it's not bookkeeping. It takes an awful lot of rehearsal for a man to get to be himself." Our characters don't exactly progress through standard melodramatic devices but rather through a process of self-recognition best exemplified through the relationship between Kitty (Jeanne Cagney) and Tom. Just like Wesley, our piano playing unemployed man, there's no way to seize the possibilities of life as long as we are so narrow in our conditioned expectations from ourselves and others. Joe is extraordinary because, perhaps because of his traumatic lost love, he seems to have abandoned normal social modes of behavior and the expectations and limitations imposed by them.

I think a lot of people will probably feel that the various changes the characters go through are too contrived and of course it's obvious that all these events would be unlikely to occur within the play's span of time of only one day. It's probably more fruitful to see the movie as essentially a filmed play, since there are very few cinematic tricks and since all of these events and character development can be seen in "theater time." Some of the contrivances are only apparent because the play has been trimmed a bit to fit into theater showing times; the original romance between Tom and Kitty was apparently more developed in the play. That makes Tom's confession of love seem a bit forced. There's not a lot to complain about in the movie; I just took it for what it is and I enjoyed it very much for the brief scenes that really show the good aspects of human nature and a sense of hope for humanity. The little guy actually does win his pinball machine, Tom really does get together with Kitty, and the bad guy Blick (Tom Powers) doesn't manage to shut the bar down. I loved how Joe kept sending Tom for seemingly random items and the fact that there was no "clever" resolution to explain why he asked for them. It seems like Joe is very interested in the random nature of the saloon and the kind of random people who come into the saloon, as he befriends Kitty and later an old drunk frontiersman (extraordinary character work by James Barton). The story would be painfully predictable with no random elements if it wasn't for the presence of Joe  the credits pretty much tell us everything about both the good and the bad (Blick for instance is a "stool pigeon and frame-up artist") and so perhaps I should have expected for things to turn out in a somewhat less than usual manner but I was still taken somewhat by surprise simply because the style of the film had lulled me into a state of acceptance.

This film probably won't appeal to all that many people nowadays except fans of classic theater and James Cagney's acting. But it's a worthy and unusual film, even a daring film in the fact that it allows Cagney to simply fulfill his strange role in the film and doesn't feel weighed down by the traditional trappings of the "star system" that usually take stage to film adaptations off their tracks.


I like James Cagney. I like just about all the other actors and actresses in this movie. I just absolutely, positively despise every one of them IN this movie. This apparently was a project by some of Cagney's family members. Honest, this movie is 'grates-on-your-nerves-annoying' just like having to stand in a checkout line while someone nearby talks on their cellphone. The story (or the sub-stories) are trite, annoying, irritating, and aggravating. Not one of the characters is particularly likable in their roles. Even Cagney is annoying but he has no choice other than to play his part in this bad, bad, bad film. Like I said, I like Cagney a lot, I even like some 'bad' movies which are so bad they're good. This movie is so bad, it is simply aggravating. I expected better than this; it was rated two stars and I thought 'well it must be a little quirky' and recorded it on the DVR. I may need to get my DVR fumigated. Have I made the point how appallingly bad this movie is?


Based on a Broadway play of the same name, this movie shows Cagney in an uncharacteristic role as a mysterious patron of a bar on the "wrong side of the tracks". Bill Bendix is great as the owner/bartender of the place. The dialog is well written and delivered with the skill you expect from greats like Cagney and Bendix.

As the story progresses you learn more and more about Cagney's character, but he remains much of a mystery. The sub-plots are compelling. Unusual for a film from 1944, there is little mention of the war.

All-in-all, a very touching, often funny and interesting film. It kept several people up well past their usual bedtimes.


Although this story is relatively confined to a simple bar set I found the characters that enter the scene are very animated and entertaining. The level headed owner/bartender keeps everything in order but the antics do fly. A refreshing look at the expressive character types of the 40's. Not much in terms of complex plot twists or symbolic messages just a funfilled look at a bar/lounge of that time period.


This is a wonderful film with great characters, classic set, and snappy dialogue. Jimmy Cagney turns in a great performance on this little known film.

A fun time if you like interesting characters playing people we all know.


Considering the year and political climate of the time, this was a remarkable film. Today (2001) it is rather passe to have a black actor in a major role, jazz as the defining music, unstructured modern dance a la Martha Graham, and progressive political ideas bantered about. I am amazed that this film was not blocked by the McCarthy witch hunting. Additionally, this movie evokes the feeling of optimism percolating within post WW2 America. Anything was possible, Korea had not yet erupted, and there was still a homey and "gee wiz" attitude towards the future. A great movie to contrast with "Coming Home" staring Jane Fonda. As an adaptation of the William Saroyan play, Cagney and Bendix et al have captured essence of its anima and message.


This was a labor of love for cagney and it was a big flop. When he played a gangster again in white heat a year later it was a big hit. In the 40's cagney wanted to stay away from the gangster films but most of the films he made did pretty bad. This is one of his best films, up there with smart money and the roaring twenties.


This is probably my least favorite Cagney film. It looks like it was originally a play, as it is VERY static and stagy--so much so, that it suffers from a severe case of claustrophobia! Also, it makes the unforgivable mistake of being dull--and that takes a lot of work in a Cagney film. Usually, his energy level alone will elevate the movie to at least the average range but here he looks half asleep and the many not very interesting bar patrons act out their little stories for the camera. I saw this movie just a few years ago, but I can't remember ANY of the stories within the movie because they just weren't compelling or memorable. You keep waiting for some sort of payoff, but it just never comes!


This is a great movie! It's full of good wholesome values that I am glad for my kids to see. For example, before giving Elmo magic clothes to wear to the ball, the Fairy Godperson tells Elmo that what matters is how a person behaves, who you are as a unique person, not what you wear. (Then he says, "But it's fun to dress up!" and poof, Elmo is wearing nice clothes.) The princess is kind and gracious. When Bert offers her his paper clip collection, she doesn't laugh, but instead she recognizes that it's one of his favorite possessions and she is honored that he would offer it to her. Oh my, and I LOVE that the genders are mostly switched around. It's a princess, not a prince; Cinderelmo is a boy not a girl; and the Fairy Godperson (in training) is a male -- and wonderful! This is a kids' movie not to miss!


Of course kids will love it; it's Elmo. But this clever and light-hearted retelling of Cinderella is winning enough for parents to enjoy, too. It has great songs and outstanding performances. Oliver Platt steals the show as the bumbling Fairy Godfather. Kathy Najimy, French Stewart, and Keri Russell all hold their own with the furry bunch. A definite winner.