The story focuses on the plight of Wang Chia-chih and her involvement in a plot to assassinate Mr. Yee, who is a co-collaborator of a Chinese collaborator with the invading Japanese force.

[2] According to David Der-wei Wang, Lust, Caution “drew controversy thanks to a biographical subtext: it seems to project Chang's own wartime experience as a collaborator's lover”.

[3] In 2008, Hong Kong magazine Muse released an unpublished English manuscript by Eileen Chang, entitled The Spyring or Ch'ing Kê!

[5] Their daughter Elaine and son Chinese-American translator Roland Soong inherited Chang's literary estate.

An online newspaper article in The New York Times reveals that Roland Soong "was approached about making a film" from Chang's Lust, Caution upon returning to Hong Kong in 2003.

Throughout their liaison, Chia-chih struggles internally between her personal attachment to Mr. Yee and her task to lure him into an assassination trap.

On the day of the impending assassination, Mr. Yee offers to buy Chia-chih a rare diamond ring when they visit a jeweler to replace a gem from one of her earrings.

As they wait for the jeweler to prepare a receipt, Chia-chih presumes that Mr. Yee's feelings for her are genuine and agonizes over the thought of the impending assassination.

In Julia Lovell's afterword, "Chang created for the first time a heroine directly swept up in the radical, patriotic politics of the 1940s, charting her exploitation in the name of nationalism and her impulsive abandonment of the cause for an illusory love.

According to scholar Yao Sijia, this is a radical notion in comparison to the conventional belief that individuals are subordinate to the nation.

In the novella, lust plays a vital role in depicting love as a commodity that is easily exchangeable and disposable.

In addition, the description of feminine dresses, jewels, and a luxurious curtain in Mr. Yee's residence are all symbols of wealth and power in a war-stricken nation.

[11] Lust, Caution can be categorized as a roman à clef in which elements of Chang's life and emotions are integrated into the novel.

Peng and Dilly concluded as: “Yet even more controversial was the film's 'erotic politics': the torrid sex between the female spy and the collaborator, only vaguely implied in Chang's story, was turned into three explicit sex scenes with accompanying visual and visceral effects; the female protagonist's full frontal nudity touched off a raging inferno of internet criticism in China.”[16]