The latest film by Academy Award winning director Ang Lee takes place in a totally different environment than "Brokeback Mountain." It is an erotic "espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai," with the emphasis on erotic, deceit and languor.

You can watch the trailer here .

From Peter Travers of Rolling Stone:

There are no wasted motions. Exquisite beauty and barbarous intent are all caught in the lens of the great cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Lee, working with an intricate script by Wang Hui Ling and James Schamus, keeps us constantly off balance. Much has been made of the NC-17 sex scenes. For the reliably idiotic ratings board, it all comes down to pubic hair and pelvic thrusts. For Lee, it goes deeper, into areas of control. Yee approaches sex with the sadistic relish he'd use to torture a suspect, while Wong Chia-Chi acts the role of subservient vessel. When they both drop the masks and yield to grander passions, the effect is devastating. The actors deserve the highest praise. Leung goes places he's never been before as an actor. And newcomer Tang Wei gives a performance that will be talked about for years. Lee is a true master, and his potently erotic and suspenseful Lust, Caution casts a spell you won't want to break.

From the San Francisco Chronicle review:

Lust, Caution: Drama. Starring Tang Wei and Tony Leung. Directed by Ang Lee. (NC-17. 158 minutes.)

Stylized and visually arresting, with intense sex scenes that earned the film an NC-17 rating, Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is an immersion into another time, place and mentality. This capturing of an era's mentality is what makes the film more than just another exalted period piece. Set in Japanese-occupied China during World War II, the film depicts people whose lives have been infected by a protracted war that permeates every aspect of life and complicates and perverts the simplest of interactions.

Based on the story by Eileen Chang, "Lust, Caution," which won the Golden Lion at this year's Venice Film Festival, unfolds at a languorous (or cautious) pace, ultimately leaving audiences with a haunted feeling. Though the film does not show combat, it does present, in a gradual and increasingly unsettling way, war's psychological effects. The fact of the occupation is with every character at all times. It's impossible to forget, and eventually that feeling gets inside the audience, too, that uneasy sense of there always being something to worry about, some constraint on expression or behavior.