ABSTRACT
In examining Ang Lee’s much debated 2007 film, let us start from the impossibility of trans-lation of the film title from Chinese to English, Se|Jie (色|戒) to Lust/Caution. The impossibility has less to do with the way in which the multiple and ambivalent meanings of the Chinese title (se 色 as sex, lust, or appearance; jie 戒 as ring, caution, or renunciation; se jie 色戒 as a colored diamond ring, sexual abstinence, or a Buddhist warning against secular indulgence) are narrowed down to two plain English words, lust and caution. It has more to do with the seemingly meaningless, trivial, yet eerily unusual mark “|” in the Chinese title, which disappears and is replaced by a common backslash in the film title. In the case of the story title (“Lust, Caution”), it is a comma, a familiar mark of pause, interval and separation in English.
