Ang Lee's Lust, Caution world premiere at Venice Film Festival filled with controversy

The highly anticipated Ang Lee film Lust, Caution had it's world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 30th and there has been nothing but media buzz around the movie (unfortunately not of the good kind).

Before the director and cast even got to walk the red carpet, news had spread from the US that the espionage thriller was slapped with an NC-17 rating for it's "provacative" sex scenes.

In the past, movies with this rating would get a limited release as many theatres in the US refuse to carry these films. Of course Lee has stated he will not trim the movie down to get a more general rating, as these scenes are integral to the plot.

Ironically, Asian distributors have cleared the movie for release in both China and Taiwan with no hitch.

But on Asian turf, representatives from Taiwan are in a bit of huff because the film has been listed as a U.S.A - Taiwan - China co-production. They claimed that by placing Taiwan next to China, it makes it look like Taiwan is a province instead of a seperate country of China. Ang has smartly kept mum about it all and stated that everyone knows where he's from.

The final batch of negative publicity has to do with post premiere reviews from the international press which were less than positive (Ouch!).

I'm going to get a chance to make my own decision when I see this Eileen Chang adapted film at the Toronto Film Festival under their Special Presentations category (more on the festival later) and will report to you guys just what I think of it next week.    

If you want to find out more about Lust, Caution, check out a really nice profile of Ang Lee and his controversial movie from the International Herald Tribune. 

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