To quote an official MPAA movie ratings poster: "THE SYSTEM CAN'T WORK UNLESS YOU UNDERSTAND THE SYSTEM."

How many NC-17-rated films did you see in the theater in the past year? Maybe one? That is if Ang Lee's Lust, Caution even played in your 'hood. And considering the most screens it ever played on in any single week was 143, I highly doubt it (understandably, it could have played in more than 143 locations over the course of its 20 weeks in theaters, but I doubt many more).

But if there had been more NC-17-rated films, and they actually played near you, would you have gone to see them? And if so, why? Because you expect something more titillating than the other releases to choose from? And if not, why? Are you afraid of others thinking you are going to see something dirty? Are you embarrassed about both attending and watching graphic sex on screen? Do you correlate the experience to going to a porno theater?

"This is the man Hugh Grant dubbed 'Fang Lee' after making Sense and Sensibility with him," so says a new article in The Age about Ang Lee's apparent reputation for being a cruel taskmaster on his movie sets, although in Lee's defense the piece doesn't offer a great deal of examples to support its premise and comes across more like a hook to write up an otherwise boring piece about Lust, Caution. In fact, the closest it comes to naming names is offering the vague assertion that Heath Ledger once claimed Lee pushed him to the brink of physical endurance during the shooting of Brokeback Mountain, which doesn't sound like a damning accusation even if it's taken in context. But who cares about context? Lets have some more hyperbole: Lee is "the industry's Clark Kent," according to the piece. "Under that mild-mannered exterior -- consisting of a gentle-to-inaudible speaking voice, self-deprecating manner and an overall Zen calm -- lurks a driven obsessive, a Caligula among directors."

According to the article, Lee reportedly spent 100 hours to film a ten minute sex scene in Lust, Caution, but he defends his exactitude as a necessary part of the job. "None of us enjoys it," he's quoted as saying. "By nature it's very uncomfortable, draining and painful. We're just common people. It felt pretty harsh. But we used the pain. We enjoyed the pain." Okay, maybe that last line tags him as a bit of a weirdo, but I rarely believe stories about directors being unreasonable on the set, and if you want to know why, check out the making-of documentary on the DVD of The Shining. There's a great moment when Kubrick loses his cool at Shelley Duvall for not hitting her mark, and you can see how little moments like that can create a 'reputation,' but it still seems like something that's all in a day's work.

When it comes to lists, Cinematical likes to keep things brief. Some of you think the alliterative Cinematical Seven is a bit too small when it comes to movie lists. I can't count the times I've been asked to up my list to 10 to add a few here or there, which is why I try to refrain from titling them with words like "best." There is always something missing. However, I imagine it would be harder to miss something if you upped the count to 50, and make it a list spanning only one year. Yes, this is what Moviefone has done. Out of the few hundred movies that were released this year, they've come up with their Top 50 of 2007.

Starting off the list is Transformers, which our own Erik Davis described as "one of the biggest, baddest action flicks we've seen in a long time." From there, well, you can guess most of the films that made the list -- they're the big blockbusters that people flocked to, like 300, and the art flicks smaller groups raved about, like Lars and the Real Girl. Of course, I don't know if I'd keep all of the contenders in this best-of list (Hairspray); however, we're not talking about a list of 10, so not every film can be wondrous. The list is mainly North American offerings, although you will spot a few of the international biggies like The Lives of Others and Lust, Caution.

Check out the list and weigh in: did they get it right? Are there some glaring omissions? Travesties that shouldn't be on any list with the word "best" in it?

Lust, Caution is a great festival film; it's lush and long and loaded. It's also a bad festival film; I want to go back to it and think about it more, as if it were too delicate or intricate to be understood with the snap judgments and quick appraisals a festival can make you turn to at first resort. Like director Ang Lee's prior film, Brokeback Mountain, Lust, Caution takes a brisk, brief short story (Se, Jei by Eileen Chang) and makes it fill the screen, with plenty of room for visual rapture and strong performances -- and some space for doubts and questions to seep in, with a distant whisper of controversy about sex (for the R-rated Brokeback, over gay themes and characters; for the NC-17-rated Lust, over explicit straight sex) at the edge of hearing.

In wartime Shanghai, Mrs. Mak (Tang Wei) enters a parlor and travels to another world. She plays Mah-Jong with idle, wealthy women (who live in constant danger, in the middle of squalor) and slowly, carefully, carries out the steps in a plan to meet her lover, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) -- husband to Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen), collaborator in service to the occupying Japanese, torturer. But Mrs. Mak's actions don't speak in the warm close whispers of a lover, but rather in the brittle conspiratorial tones of a criminal. ...

Because she is not Mrs. Mak; she is Wong Chia Chi, and she has been on a four-year journey to meet with Mr. Yee and be his lover. Until some later point, when he can be killed. Lust, Caution revolves around a plot, like a thriller, and we try to read it like that; but it also revolves around character and nature, like a drama, and we see it through that perspective. The movie -- and the audience -- jumps from intimate drama to glossy thrills.

Last week Peter Martin told us about rumors that Ang Lee might be working on a less explicit version of his NC-17-rated Lust, Caution for release in China. Now The Hollywood Reporter confirms it's true: Moviegoers in mainland China will see a version with less lust and more caution.

(With a film called Lust, Caution, and a story about cutting out the naughty parts, the headlines practically write themselves. I apologize.)

Lee's new film, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and is currently showing at Toronto, got its NC-17 rating for the United States a few weeks ago -- a rating he and Focus Features didn't argue with. As Monika Bartyzel reported on Aug. 24, Focus CEO James Schamus said, "When we screened the final cut of this film, we knew we weren't going to change a frame. Every moment up on that screen works and is an integral part of the emotional arc of the characters."

Well, apparently in China, about 30 minutes' worth of moments aren't quite as integral to the characters' emotional arcs. That's how much Lee has cut from the film's 156-minute running time to appease Chinese censors. (There's no rating system in China, so every film has to be generally acceptable for all audiences.) Lee reportedly has done the editing himself to maintain artistic integrity, and he's satisfied with the new version.

Which brings up a question: If the film works just as well when it's 30 minutes shorter and containing less sex and violence, why not release that version in the U.S., too, and avoid the box office death that an NC-17 rating all but ensures? I'm speaking from a purely financial standpoint. Obviously, if cutting stuff out harms the film's message or impact, leave it in and keep the rating. I suspect the film really isn't as good in its shorter form, and that Lee is doing what he has to in order to secure the lucrative Chinese box office. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions like that when art and commerce intersect.

Cinematical's first interview with Lust, Caution director Ang Lee had to be re-scheduled so that Lee could fly to Venice to receive the Golden Lion for his latest film; entirely understandable, and certainly not the worst reason I've ever had an interview move around on the schedule. One of the more polarizing entries at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, Lust, Caution tells the story of a radical group of Chinese students in the 1940s who send Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) undercover in an attempt to kill the collaborator Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Armed with nothing more than patriotic fervor and what she's learned from Hollywood movies, her mission is as unknowable as it is unsafe. ... Lust, Caution resists easy appreciation as firmly as it rebukes simple dismissals. Lee spoke with Cinematical in Toronto about the process of bringing Eileen Chang's short story to the big screen, the opportunity to recreate 1940's Shanghai, the intoxicating -- and dangerous -- power of acting and art and the artistic and commercial challenges of the film's NC-17 rating; to download the interview, click here.

It looks like the MPAA took the title of Ang Lee's latest film, Lust, Caution, pretty seriously. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that the film, which is gearing up for release, has just been slapped with an NC-17 rating. That means that no Lee fans under 17 will be admitted, which is fine, but it also means distribution problems. A source for THR said that appealing isn't even an option; too many of the sex scenes violate the rating board's unwritten rules (like number of pelvic thrusts). I always find it funny when repetition becomes the thing to censor -- watch it once and you're ok. Watch that action 5 times in a row, and you'll be scarred!

With a big, money-making director like Ang, one would imagine that edits would attempt to be made -- but that isn't going to happen. Focus Features has accepted the rating, and CEO James Schamus (who co-wrote the screenplay) says: "When we screened the final cut of this film, we knew we weren't going to change a frame. Every moment up on that screen works and is an integral part of the emotional arc of the characters." I can't help but wonder if the fuss has been over-blown. I went into Brokeback Mountain thinking I was going to see some pretty raunchy and explicit gay sex, but it was far from what people blew it up to be.

So, what made the MPAA pull out their big NC-17 stamp? "Sources who have seen the film said it contains at least three scenes -- one a long montage -- featuring multiple acts of aggressive sexual activity in different positions. There's no full-frontal male nudity, but male-on-female oral sex, non-S&M restraints and several nontraditional sexual positions are depicted, conveying the aggression and emotional conflict between the main characters." Oh, and they're supposedly very flexible in said positions. And what, might I ask, are non-S&M restraints? You'll soon be able to see for yourself. THR lists both September 28 and October 5 as release dates, so either way, it'll be out soon.

Posters for Ang Lee movies are typically unimaginative, so I was pretty shocked when I saw the new one-sheet for Lee's latest, Lust, Caution. It isn't exactly an innovative design, but it is a lot more interesting than his usual head-shot type of poster. I like it even better than the Brokeback Mountain look-away-in-shame artwork. And if we can base the quality of Lee's movies on their posters (just look at the awful designs for Hulk and Ride with the Devil to see how it works), then Lust, Caution could be his best film to date. This poster, with its browning tones and its shadows, make the film look like it's directed by Wong Kar Wai (whose films also didn't have good posters until recently). It could just be because Tony Leung stars, or because of that dress, but for me the poster evokes Wong's In the Mood for Love. I am surprised that Joan Chen isn't featured anywhere, but I guess they preferred to spotlight newcomer Tang Wei, who gets even better exposure here than Leung (though it must be said that Leung's profile is more recognizable than many other stars').

Lust, Caution is Lee's return to Chinese-language filmmaking again following Hulk and Brokeback, and it marks his first film after winning the Oscar for the latter film. He is again working with executive producer James Schamus of Focus Features and he has brought back Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon producer William Kong and screenwriter Wang Hui-Ling. Lee's longtime editor Tim Squyres also returns after not working on Brokeback. It seems the only collaborator that Lee is keeping from his Oscar darling is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto. Lust, Caution is set in WWII Shanghai and involves a plot to assassinate an intelligence chief in the Japanese-backed Chinese government. Leung plays the intelligence chief, Chen plays his wife and Tang is a student who seduces Leung's the character in order to set up the assassination. Focus will open the film in limited release September 28.

Check out the trailer after the jump.

Focus Features has some pretty good films under their belt, some of which they start their upcoming film preview with -- a collection of clips that has found its way to YouTube. There's Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, to name a few. But after a re-cap of some of their past successes, the collection offers some footage -- equipped with that cheesy, uber-positive voice over designed to pump you up -- of their upcoming offerings: Evening, Talk to Me, Eastern Promises, Lust, Caution, Reservation Road and Atonement.

Some of the films Cinematical has already shown you glimpses of before. Jessica Barnes and Chris Ullrich previously led you to trailers of Talk to Me, the Don Cheadle biopic about Ralph "Petey" Greene, and in April, I posted about a trailer for Keira Knightley's Atonement, so there's nothing new to see for those films. However, there are some moving glances at the other up-and-coming films that should be worth our attention. Evening, which is the latest Michael Cunningham adaptation, again brings together a huge female cast from Glenn Close and Meryl Streep to Vanessa Redgrave and Toni Collette. All you get in the preview are glimpses of their faces, but there's also a trailer here that you check out, before the ten-hankie film is released this week. There's also David Cronenberg's dark drama Eastern Promises, which looks visually great, and I imagine will be all the better in the right mood, without the PR speak narrating it. The same goes for Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, that geared up last May. Finally, there's Reservation Road, which has possibilities considering the cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly, but all you get in this blip are a few quick shots before seeing each one of them looking super-somber.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar winner Ang Lee will work again with longtime collaborator James Schamus of Focus Features to make the WWII-era spy thriller, Lust, Caution. Set in Shanghai, the Chinese-language feature is being written by Wang Hui-Ling, the screenwriter who co-wrote Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The movie is being adapted from a short story by the late Chinese author Eileen Chang. Lee and Schamus have collaborated on nine films together so far, with Brokeback Mountain serving as Focus Features' all-time top-grossing film. No word yet on the plot details of this espionage movie, but I already thrill to the plot intrigues, romance, set design, and period costumes that will be under Lee's assured directorial vision.