Lust, Caution (2007) on Netflix

NC-1720072h 37mDrama Romance Thriller

In 1938 Hong Kong, student Wong Chia Chi joins a patriotic drama club that plots to kill Mr. Yee, a collaborator with the Japanese occupiers. She becomes Mrs. Mak to reach him.

Netflix3.4/5
IMDb7.5/1048,364 votes
Rotten Tomatoes73%

Trailer

Plot summary

Wong Chia Chi leaves Shanghai for Hong Kong in 1938, among the many mainland Chinese who have fled the Sino-Japanese War, and enrolls at Lingnan University. There Kuang Yu Min draws her into his patriotic drama club, where she becomes a lead actress. Wanting direct action rather than fundraising for the resistance, Kuang proposes killing Mr. Yee, a senior collaborator with the Japanese occupiers. Wong takes the cover identity of Mrs. Mak, a rich businessman's wife, and makes herself a familiar presence in Mrs. Yee's circle, though none of them knows anything about espionage. When the Yees move back to Shanghai, the students lose their chance. Three years later Kuang, by then working for the Kuomintang secret service, brings Wong into a new plan against Yee.

Cast

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lust, Caution (2007)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

After Lust, Caution, Tang Wei was barred from mainland China's film industry for three years; ads using her image were pulled and she lost the lead in Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Warrior and the Wolf, which went to Maggie Q.
SPOILER
For mainland China, the moment Wong Chia Chi quietly warns Mr. Yee with "Go, go quickly" was re-dubbed "Let's go," so she no longer betrays the resistance plot by herself.
SPOILER
Zheng Pingru's older sister held a September 2007 press conference in Los Angeles claiming the film defamed her, saying Zheng Pingru was wrongly shown as falling for her target, Ding Mocun, when in fact her gun jammed.
Taiwan entered Lust, Caution as its Best Foreign Film Oscar candidate, but the Academy asked it to withdraw because too few Taiwanese worked on the production and not enough locals "exercised artistic control" over it.
Lust, Caution took $67 million worldwide against a $16 million budget, which made it the highest-grossing NC-17 film of all time.
The Venice Film Festival first billed Lust, Caution as "China-USA", then switched it to "USA-China-Taiwan, China", prompting Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council to protest and blame the PRC.
In Singapore, an outcry over the producers' plan to release a cut version rated NC-16 pushed them to put out the uncut film instead, rated R-21.
Locations in Penang and Ipoh in Malaysia were used to stand in for 1930s and 1940s Hong Kong.