Lust, Caution

[rolotomasi99]

for me, this is the most eagerly anticipated film of the year. i am assuming this will be taiwan's submission to the academy. hopefully, the film will also receive some other nominations like cinematography, costume, score, screenplay, and director. best picture seems like too much to hope for, but it is always possible. i am so glad focus is not backing down on the sexual content of the film. some of the quotes in this article are frickin hilarious.



Brokeback' Director's Latest Too Hot For Censors

Distributor Focus Features said it won't edit the Oscar-winning filmmaker's follow-up to "Brokeback Mountain" or try to appeal the rating -- which says that no one 17 and under will be admitted -- creating potential distribution problems for its awards-season contender.

"Lust" follows a young Chinese woman in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II who becomes the center of a plot to seduce and kill a married enemy collaborator. The trailer for the subtitled Chinese-language film shows lead actors Tony Leung and Tang Wei in various states of writhing passion.

The Motion Picture Assn. of America's ratings board cited the film's graphic sexuality for its decision. A source said too many of the film's sex scenes violated the ratings board's unwritten rules (like the number of allowable pelvic thrusts, for example) to make an appeal possible.

Sources who have seen the film said it contains at least three scenes -- one a long montage -- featuring multiple acts of aggressive sexual activity in different positions. There's no full-frontal male nudity (the source of some NC-17 rulings when shown in sex scenes), but male-on-female oral sex, non-S&M restraints and several nontraditional sexual positions are depicted, conveying the aggression and emotional conflict between the main characters.

When asked if anyone was shown, say, upside down, one viewer said, "It depends on where you're standing. They're very flexible."

Focus Features CEO James Schamus, who co-wrote the screenplay, said he is accepting the rating "without protest. When we screened the final cut of this film, we knew we weren't going to change a frame," he said. "Every moment up on that screen works and is an integral part of the emotional arc of the characters. The MPAA has screened the film now and made its decision, and we're comfortable with that."

Schamus didn't disclose how long the company was aware that "Lust" might receive an NC-17 but noted that Lee has final cut.

"Ang is the filmmaker, and he brought this adaptation to life," Schamus said. "He knows exactly what he wants to realize and achieve in filming any given sequences, and he made the final decisions on how to stage, frame, shoot and edit them, much in the same way he did with 'Crouching Tiger' or 'Brokeback.' "

Focus' move could face challenges as the film readies for its September 28 release. Some newspapers and TV outlets won't carry ads for NC-17 films, which has led non-MPAA-member distributors like ThinkFilm to release some features unrated.

As a subsidiary of MPAA member Universal Pictures, Focus must release its films with a rating. In many cases, especially with specialty divisions, distributors will pressure filmmakers to appeal or make necessary cuts to attain an R rating. There have been a few notable exceptions, including Fox Searchlight's drama "The Dreamers" and Sony Pictures Classics' thriller "Young Adam," which made $2.5 million and $770,000, respectively, in 2004.

It's unclear if the rating will deter Oscar voters, some of whom expressed distaste with the gay sex scenes in "Brokeback," which won Lee best director honors but lost the best picture race. John Schlesinger's X-rated 1969 gay hustler drama "Midnight Cowboy" won the best picture Oscar, and Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 erotic drama "Last Tango in Paris" -- rated X -- earned the director and his star Marlon Brando nominations.

Universal's 1990 drama "Henry & June," which chronicled French writer Anais Nin's erotic relationship with American scribe Henry Miller and his wife, June, was the first film to be released with an NC-17 after years of debate over the X rating's box office stigma. The studio released the 2005 NC-17 documentary "Inside Deep Throat" and allowed its specialty division October Films to release Trey Parker's 1998 NC-17 porn spoof "Orgazmo."

"Lust" premieres in the next few weeks at the Venice and Toronto fests before opening in New York, followed by an October 5 release in select cities.