Details  Limited Release: Sep 28, 2007; Rated: NC-17; Length: 158 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Foreign Language, Romance; With: Joan Chen and Tony Leung Chiu Wai

In Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, a painfully high-toned erotic drama set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II, Tony Leung, as a poshly repressed Chinese government minister, and Tang Wei, as a willowy student resistance fighter who seduces him as part of an assassination plot, spend a fair amount of time with their clothes off. (At least, they do once you've sat through an eternity of muffled espionage noodling.) It's fair to say that most of what they do in their nakedness is easy on the eyes. The first time the two go at it, Leung, a veteran Hong Kong matinee idol who can look about as severe as Dracula, pulls off his belt and administers a beating to get her in the mood. Tang, a flashing-eyed newcomer wearing complicated hair and a conspiratorial bud of a smile, responds with gasps of pleasure. There are ripples of coercion and torment throughout their lovemaking — an ecstasy just this side of agony. Torsos glisten, limbs intertwine as if they belonged to double-jointed acrobats, and at one point there's a shot of intercourse that, unless Lee is using some effects that George Lucas never thought of concocting, makes it look a lot like the two actors are truly doing it.