Se, Jie (Lust, Caution) by director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger) is the latest in his oeuvre of noble, tragic romances. He’s gone from Wudang martial artists with special powers, to green monsters with special powers, to the latest, an apparatchik with special powers who collaborates with the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. This movie is a wartime period piece mated with the coming-of-age story of a two-bit resistance cell. The movie’s NC-17 rating is meaningless in an era of Internet pr0n; what shocks is not the sex, but the brutality.

Lee places brown traffic cops in red Rajasthani-style turbans in the streets of WWII Shanghai. The climactic scene pivots around Anupam Kher, Chandni Chowk Jewelers and a pink diamond the size of a quail egg. ‘Uske paas kuchh khaas lifafa hai (She has an important envelope),’ says the jeweler’s assistant, and a trap is sprung.

I can’t say I agree with the writer’s moral choices, but this film’s got soul. And it’s got the strange distinction of being more literal, less dreamy than a piece of pop culture like Hulk. Lee tends towards the lyrical, and he films Joan Chen in endless games of small talk and mahjong, but this powerful movie kept my attention all the way through.

New York mag has more. Here’s the trailer: