Controversial Film By Ang Lee Applauded In Taiwan

Moviegoers in Taiwan have given director Ang Lee’s steamy adult film the thumbs-up. Prize-winning Lust, Caution was been well received in Lee’s native Taiwan, despite the controversy surrounding the movies sexual nature.

The film was the winner of this year’s Golden Lion award at the Venice film festival and played to full houses on it’s premiere at several Taipei cinemas last night, which have given the movie an adult rating and left it uncut.

“Lust, Caution” is a spy thriller set in Shanghai in World War Two. It got mainly negative reviews at Venice and critics had said it was long and tedious. But, movie goers last night had a different view.

“Awesome,” was how one viewer had described the 156-minute long movie, which is often punctuated by explicit and violent sex.

Ang Lee will have to re-cut the film for it’s release in China this week, after Beijing deemed the on-screen sex and other scenes inappropriate.

The director was nervous about the premiere of his film in Taiwan, due to the graphic sex. He didn’t know how his fans in his native town would react. To his surprise, the audience gasped louder at a scene featuring a large diamond than at any of the sex scenes.

Ang Lee has said,

“I feel good when I come back to Taiwan. When I make a Chinese movie, I can examine my growth and have a new start again. Every time when I come back, I review the past and it gives me the feeling that I will have a brand new start and keep going forward,”

The movie is expected to gross T$3.5 million initially, and is set to eventually break the T$50 million record for Lee’s hit film Brokeback Mountain, which earned Ang Lee a Best Director Oscar.

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