Metrograph

Adapting Eileen Chang’s 1979 novella, Lee’s steamy cloak-and-dagger thriller follows Tang Wei’s student in Japan-occupied Hong Kong as she becomes involved in a plot to assassinate a collaborator with the puppet government, played by the always supped Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, using her erotic allure as the bait to lead him into a trap. What follows is an intimate epic in which political convictions must struggle against conflicting feelings of sexual desire, an internal conflict that Tang conveys in a subtly shaded performance, while Lee gives a masterclass in making the depiction of sex onscreen integral to a story.