Lust, Caution - News about Ang Lee and Tony Leung

I found this post (author: Ellen) in my Amazon Plog. I saw many of Ang Lee and Wong Kar Wai films, and I saw Tony Leung also in Hou's Flowers of Shangai (beside his great performances in Wong's movies - as Ellen says, check out In the Mood for Love and 2046 if you haven't done it yet). So news about Ang Lee and Tony Leung are always exciting for me.

It was announced today that Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) has cast Tony Leung (aka Tony Leung Chiu Wai) as the lead in his upcoming espionage thriller Lust, Caution. Filming doesn't even begin until the fall, and I know precious little about the film other than it's adapted from an Eileen Chang short story, but you can bet it's already on my must-see list, based on three factors:

• Factor #1: Lee's track record for excellent movies (hey, even Hulk wasn't that bad). That he's filming another Chinese-language movie (Check out The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman if you haven't yet), his first since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, is doubly intriguing.
• Factor #2: His eye for giving young actors a big break (Zhang Ziyi, Eric Bana, Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire). In this case, he's cast a newcomer named Tang Wei (so new in fact, as of this writing she doesn't even have an entry in IMDB), which is nothing but good news for her.
• Factor #3: Working with Tony Leung. Who, you ask? One of Hong Kong's most prolific and versatile actors, who starred in Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love, 2046, Happy Together and Chungking Express; in Zhang Yimou's Hero as the peaceful fighter Broken Sword; and undercover cops in Infernal Affairs (Wu jian dao) and John Woo's Hard Boiled. If I've only seen about 15 Chinese-language movies my entire life, Tony Leung has starred in about 10 of them (He's been good every single time). Perhaps he's a prime candidate for our Why We Love program, where we highlight actors you should get to know better. But I digress. Go back and watch these again and realize you've been watching the same actor in all of them. You can thank me later.

(Ang Lee)