Lust, Caution by Ang Lee

The shot begins with a medium shot of a mannequin placed inside a store, and Wang Chia-chi walks to it. Her eyes looking at the mannequin is reflected on the show-window. She keeps walking, looks at another mannequin in another store, walks again, and she sees another mannequin. The repeated camera movement from the mannequins to the show-windows is to emphasize Wang Chia-chi as a fabricated identity acting in a play of assassinating Mr. Yee. In other words, the mannequin represents her schemed appearance, not her true identity, and the show-window indicates the boundary of the play and the reality. Previously in the film, Wang Chia-chi always looks outside through a window. However, she finally looks into the windows from outside which means she has finally shattered the boundary of window, stepped out from the play, and faced the reality. While Wang Chia-chi stares at the window of the last store, she sees an empty rickshaw and shouts, "Taxi!" She gets on the taxi, fiddles with her skirt, and wonderingly looks around. Here, once again, swish pan shot and her acting demonstrate her feeling of insecurity and effort of pretending to remain calm.

             The most important scene in the sequence, a shot of both the diamond ring and the drug on Wang Chia-chi's hand, senses her destined death. This scene follows after several shot/reverse-shots of Wang Chia-chi and the rickshaw. As the road gets blocked and the rickshaw driver tell her that it will be a long wait, Wang Chia-chi's slight smile is extremely closed up. Then the camera moves down to her neck. Her hand wearing the dazzling diamond ring plucks out the drug that Old Wu gave her in the beginning of the mission. When Wang Chia-chi first meets Old Wu, she memorizes everything Old Wu said within a few seconds. She is extremely brilliant that Wang Chia-chi foresees her death when Old Wu tells her that previously trained agents got killed as Mr.

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