| Director | Ang Lee |
|---|---|
| Genre | crime film, drama film, erotic film, erotic thriller, romance film, spy film, war film |
| Runtime | 157 min |
| Country | People's Republic of China, Taiwan, United States |
| Budget | $15 million |
| Box office | $67.1 million |
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, a shy and inexperienced university student, Wong Chia Chi, travels from Shanghai to Hong Kong to begin studying at Lingnan University. Male student Kuang Yumin invites her to join his patriotic drama club and she soon becomes a lead actress, inspiring both her audience and her colleagues. Inspired by the club's patriotic plays, Kuang persuades the group to make a more concrete contribution to the war against Japan. He devises a plan to assassinate Mr. Yee, a special agent of the puppet government of Wang Jingwei set up by the Japanese occupation in China. The beautiful Wong is chosen to take on the undercover role of "Mrs. Mak", the elegant wife of a trading company owner. She inserts herself into the social circle of Mrs. Yee.
Wong is still a virgin, and she reluctantly consents to having sex with another student involved in the plot in order to practice her role as a married woman. Attracted to Wong, Yee nearly falls for the trap but backs out at the last minute. Soon after, Mr. and Mrs. Yee move back to Shanghai, leaving the students with no further chance to complete their mission. While they are preparing to disband, a former subordinate of Yee turns up unannounced and tells them that he is aware of their plans. After a violent struggle, the students kill the subordinate and then go into hiding.
Three years later, in Japanese-occupied Shanghai governed by the Wang Jingwei regime, Wong again encounters Kuang, who is now an undercover agent of the Kuomintang (KMT) secret service, the Juntong, which is seeking to overthrow the Japanese occupation forces and the puppet government. Kuang enlists her into a renewed assassination plan to kill Yee, who has become head of Wang Jingwei's secret police department, and is responsible for torturing and executing resistance members. Wong's advances to Yee are reciprocated. During their first sexual encounter, Yee violently rapes Wong. Over the next few weeks, their sexual relationship becomes more consensual and affectionate.
When Wong reports to her KMT superior officer, she exhorts him to carry out the assassination soon, so that she will not have to continue her sexual liaison with Yee, but she is told that the assassination needs to be delayed for strategic reasons. Wong describes the emotional conflict she finds herself embroiled in, sentimentally bound to a man whom she is plotting to help assassinate. When Yee sends Wong to a jewelry store with a sealed envelope, she discovers that he has arranged for a large and extremely rare six-carat pink diamond for her, to be mounted in a ring. This provides the Chinese resistance with a chance to get at Yee when he is not accompanied by his bodyguards.
Soon after, Wong invites Yee to accompany her to collect the diamond ring. While entering the jewelry store, she notices that all those involved in the assassination plot are undercover outside. When she puts on the ring, she is overcome by emotion and quietly urges Yee to leave. Understanding her meaning, he immediately flees the shop and escapes the assassination attempt. By the end of the day, most members of the resistance group have been captured. Yee's deputy reports to him that they had been surveilling the cell for some time. An infuriated Yee demands to know why he was not informed, to which the deputy reluctantly cites Yee's relationship with Wong, before giving him the diamond ring they had recovered. Yee signs the resistance members' death warrants. Wong, Kuang and others are taken to a quarry to be executed. When Yee returns home that night, he sits on Wong's empty bed in the family guest room while his wife comes to ask him what is going on, since his secretary and two men took Wong's belongings and some papers from his office. Yee tells her that if anyone asks, she should say that Mrs. Mak has returned to Hong Kong, and then tells her to continue playing mahjong downstairs. He sits alone in the dark for a while before leaving the room.