Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Oct 14th at 6pm for Lust, Caution at the Coolidge Corner Theatre . Look for Dan wearing black shiny coat with John Jenkins Academy on the back in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.
“The new film from Ang Lee, the Academy Award-winning director of “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” A startling erotic espionage thriller about the fate of an ordinary woman’s heart, it is based on the short story by revered Chinese author Eileen Chang. Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom) Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe’s new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences – and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee’s trust by befriending his wife (Joan Chen) and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and soon finds herself swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue. In Mandarin with English subtitles, 2h37m”