The cover of the much awaited pirated copy of "Lust, Caution"

1 Jan – The much-awaited pirated DVD of Ang Lee's steamy spy drama, "Lust, Caution", has hit the streets of the Klang Valley and major towns – three months after the movie's release in September last year.

The local cinema release, which had about 12 minutes snipped off, had been a disappointment for movie-goers who had read about the torrid sex scenes following the movie's screening at the Venice Film Festival last year. Cinema Online learnt that since its release in Malaysia, pirated DVD dealers were inundated with requests for the original uncut version.

One illegal disc pedlar in Petaling Jaya told Cinema Online that pirated DVDs of a censored version (142 minutes) was available last November. "Since most of our customers were asking for the uncut version, we were careful to tell them that it was the censored version and that the 'original' one was not yet available - until now," he said, adding that copies of the uncensored film were selling well, especially to regular customers.

"Psst... darling, they're selling the DVD of us doing the nasty..."

One of his customers, who had seen the DVD of the uncut movie, said: "The DVD has all the reported sex scenes intact. Some of them look like scenes from a softporn flick. However, it is not for those who do not understand Mandarin as the subtitles in the disc were really crap and do not make sense. Also, there were no subtitles on the main print."

The customer, who declined to be identified, added that the image quality of the DVD was "acceptable" but the sound quality of the 157-minute film was poor. "After watching the movie in the cinema, I was very curious to see what was censored from the original version. I found that Ang Lee was even more controversial here than in his 'Brokeback Mountain' where he dealt with gay issues. In 'Lust, Caution' he pushed even further the boundaries of acceptable sex in the mainstream cinema," he said.

"Lust, Caution" was released in local cinemas on 27 September 2007. Writer: Lim Chang Moh