“Were those really Tony Leung’s balls?” That was the question noticeably troubling one audience member as we shuffled out of “Lust, Caution.” Quite understandable. What can’t be questioned with this film, though, is director Ang Lee’s own pair of cojones. Not simply has he made the most sexually explicit film in the history of Chinese cinema, but he’s made a superb erotic thriller that sustains itself on more than just eroticism and cheap thrills. The power of this film lies in its texture and character, which linger with the viewer longer than the ingredients indicated by the title, though the ample helpings of those do help.

The period is the early 1940s under Japanese occupation, and the setting shifts between Hong Kong and Shanghai. Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) is a fledgling actress in a patriotic theater group, whose leader’s (Wang Lee-hom) support for the resistance moves beyond the stage. He eventually hatches a plan: to assassinate a high-ranking Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Wong’s role is to get close to him, first by playing mahjong with his wife (Joan Chen), then a more carnal and sinister game with the target himself.

Some critics have complained about the languorous pace of the film’s lengthy buildup. To do so is to miss a whole dimension of this unconventional thriller. Lee‘s clinical attention to detail immerses us in a rich, multifarious world wrought with both history and individual character. Whether it’s the fleeting flicker of a smile on Wong’s face after she’s just been raped, or the portrait of Sun Yat-sen on the wall of turncoat Yee’s home study, various clues reveal a much wider reality to the characters than we see on the surface most of the time.

So yes, more than any other thriller in recent memory, this film has serious balls. More‘s the pity that censors in the country that should be claiming them have given them the chop. - 5 stars

Directed by Ang Lee. Starring Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Wang Lee-hom, Joan Chen. Category III, 159 mins.