Chinese actress, Tang Wei is to be honored as “Asian Female Star of the Year” at the upcoming CineAsia exhibition industry convention in Macau on Dec. 4 to 6.

Tang Wei has only appeared in a single film “Lust, Caution” (directed by Ang Lee) but her performance has won awards and accolades around the world. I went to see the movie last week at a local cinema and was very impressed with everyone’s performance, including Tang Wei. Her performance in playing both an innocent and seductive woman stuck in a highly complicated life of a spy could have fooled anyone that Tang is a veteran actress.

Tony Leung, of course, delivered his usual superb acting skills in this film. I think Ang Lee did an excellent job in selecting Tony to play the intense character of Mr. Yee, a Japanese collaborator. He and Tang Wei’s steamy and racy sex scenes definitely had everyone watching in the cinema speechless. In this case, I would definitely agree that they were necessary to show audience Mr. Yee’s emptiness.

Even Wang Leehom’s performance surprised many people. Leehom’s known to be a very talented and accomplished singer in Asia. I trusted he would do okay in this film under Director Ang Lee’s guidance, but Leehom’s performance turned out PDG - pretty darn good. A scene most memorable to me was when his character, Kuang Yu Min, took a broken glass and slowly stabbed it into a man. The panic-stricken Yu Min followed this wounded man who was still trying to escape, and finally giving him another forceful stabbed from the back. Yu Min’s eyes showed raw fear, anger and panic as they looked up to Tang Wei, after confirming the man’s death. “Wow”, I said to myself, “I can’t believe that’s Leehom!”.

This is certainly a masterpiece of Ang Lee that I can appreciate. If you haven’t seen it, you should!

Source: Variety