BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

If it wasn't for forbidden love, what would Ang Lee do?

 

It's been the core subject of the director's best films, "Brokeback Mountain" and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." And the title alone tells you that he's at it again with "Lust, Caution."

Which is not one of Lee's best films. But that taboo passion element? Whew.

Long, slow and, in the end, nothing new, this adaptation of Eileen Chang's World War II novella can cast a mildly mesmerizing spell if you're in the mood for it. Production values are rich and beautiful, and there are at least half a dozen superbly wrought, riveting scenes - and by that, I'm just talking about the ones where people keep their clothes on.

But it's the lust part that really stands out. The all-but-hard-core sexual encounters are noteworthy for their clammy intensity, unapologetic kinkiness and progressively acrobatic positioning. But they are most significant for their psychological revelation, which the non-carnal scenes too often tend to fumble.

Maybe because it's the only consistently intriguing aspect of the narrative, though, after a while the sex just seems to be calling attention to itself. At what point does bold depiction of honest adult behavior stop and gratuitousness begin? The Supreme Court hasn't been able to figure it out - and neither has Ang Lee.

Anyway, the too complicated yet somehow thin story: First, mah-jongg. This movie is serious about mah-jongg.

Then a flashback from 1942 Shanghai to Hong Kong four years earlier, when the Japanese already had control of Northern China but hadn't attacked the British colony. Student refugee Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) falls in with some other displaced youths, actors who want to liberate their homeland. She gets a rush like she's never known performing a patriotic play and is easily persuaded to go along when the group's leader Kuang (Wang Leehom) suggests they put their mighty acting powers to more practical use.

There's an elaborate plan to kill a visiting official from Shanghai's collaborationist government, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung Chiu-wai, of many an arty Wong Kar-wai weepy). This basically involves Wong seducing Yee into a vulnerable position. But since most of these collegiate conspirators are also virgins, it proves problematic - for their plan and, it's safe to guess, Wong's sense of herself.

But hey, she's an actress, and they're kind of schizophrenic anyway, right? This murky role-playing theme returns as we jump back to '42 Shanghai. Wong hooks up again with her resistance pals, Yee's now in charge of torturing partisans, and his wife (a barely recognizable Joan Chen) and her girlfriends are still furiously tossing the mah-jongg tiles.

This time, Wong successfully gets Yee into a bedroom - where he proceeds to tie, beat and rape her. Which she kinda likes. Divided loyalties ensue.

The spy who falls for the enemy is not an original character by any means. Wong's given some pretty good psychosexual underpinnings, though, like a long-gone daddy who opted to escape from the war zone with her brother instead of her.

And Mr. Yee does have his tenderer side. Tang's best acting moment, in her feature film debut, is when Wong vents to her handlers about how much she hates (but can't help loving) what the traitor does to her.

The flashback structure and the extremely drawn-out time it takes to make the attempt on Yee's life doesn't exactly yield Hitchcockian suspense. Much of "Lust, Caution" looks like a stylish Hitchcock entertainment, though, odd as that may seem. Since the Japanese took Shanghai years before going to war with the Western Allies, parts of the commercially vibrant city remained relatively unscathed. High fashion and Viennese cafes apparently existed right alongside the occasional sandbagged gun emplacement and corpses on the street.

All of which makes "Lust, Caution" a very sensual experience, if not a particularly exciting one.

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Bob Strauss (818) 713-3670 bob.strauss@dailynews.com

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 review>

LUST, CAUTION 

>NC-17: sex, nudity, violence, language.
>Starring: Tang Wei, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom.
>Director: Ang Lee.
>Running time: 2 hr. 38 min.
>Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; Landmark, West Los Angeles.
>In a nutshell: Graphic sexual encounters liven up this slow-moving tale. In Mandarin and Shanghainese with English subtitles.