What do Ang Lee and King Midas of Greek mythology have in common? Everything they touch turns to gold. But the Hollywood director is no myth. He's here, he's now and he's once again firmly in the spotlight.
Adding to the best director Oscar gold of Brokeback Mountain, best foreign director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Golden Lion award for Brokeback Mountain, Lee again took the coveted Golden Lion at this year's Venice Film Festival on September 8, with his latest production Lust, Caution.
The sizzling spy thriller is getting a slew of attention, most of it directed at the NC-17 age restriction slapped on the movie in the United States.
Taiwan-born Lee told media at a press roundtable on September 11, "One of the best things about the award is probably that I don't have to explain to the public that it [the movie] is art, but not pornography," no stranger to controversy after his groundbreaking work on the gay themed Brokeback Mountain.
Lee also explained the name of the movie. He said that the word "lust" did not simply refer to sexual desire, but contained all kinds of temptations and desires, and "caution" indicted an alertness against them.
His words were also a response to the film's NC-17 rating. The Motion Picture Association of America uses this rating to indicate that the movie cannot be viewed by anyone aged 17 and under, even if they are accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Based on the 28-page short story by revered Chinese author Eileen Chang, Lust, Caution is set in the 1940s Shanghai during World War II, where a group of patriotic students plot to assassinate the then intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese Government.
The film stars Asian cinema icon Tony Leung, who plays the intelligence chief Mr. Yee and screen newcomer Tang Wei, who plays the Chinese student Wong Chia Chi that seduces Yee to set up the assassination.
To depict Wong Chia Chi's delicate and complex emotional intrigue with Mr. Yee and the poignant love and fierce hostility between the two conflicting characters, Lee uses explicit sex scenes.
Despite the mixed responses from critics, Lee insisted that the erotic scenes were necessary for the movie.
"They first hate and then love each other, a love that in turn generates hatred," said Lee. "If the scenes were less direct, the audience would fail to get it," Lee said as quoted by Taiwan's United Daily News.
He also said during an interview at the Toronto Film Festival that in the sex scenes, the lead characters in the movie were stripped down to the ultimate body language and the "ultimate performance."
After the pre-screening of Lust, Caution in New York on September 11, Lee told media he was not expecting the Golden Lion, as he had won it so recently. He admitted, however, that the award will be a great boost to the market potential of the movie. But he also pointed out that it would be difficult for Lust, Caution to generate high box office in the United States, partly because of cultural interpretations and Chinese dialogue used. Some U.S. reports also consider the NC-17 rating an impediment to the movie's box office performance in the country.
