Bankable director Ang Lee's spy thriller Lust, Caution has raked in 90 million yuan (about US$11.25 million) on the Chinese mainland since it opened at local cinemas on November 1, a source with the China Film Group Corporation revealed.

An company official surnamed Lai predicted that the box office gross for the film would exceed 100 million yuan "several days later".

The Bourne Ultimatum and Live Free or Die Hard, the next two foreign films introduced by the China Film Group Corporation, will hit Chinese mainland screens on Thursday.

"These two films will not greatly impact the box office of Lust, Caution, said Gao Jun, spokesman for the Beijing Film Association, one of the capital's major cinema lines.

Set in World War-II era Shanghai, Lust, Caution, starring mainland actress Tang Wei and Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, is about a sexually-charged relationship between an undercover female student activist and a Japanese-allied intelligence chief.

Lee's movie, called Se, Jie in Chinese, has been a hot topic in the mainland media and among the public long before its official screening here due to its bold sex scenes. The movie has been given the restricted NC-17 label in the United States, banning viewers under 17.

In order to get approval for a mainland release, Lee, the Academy Award winning director of Brokeback Mountain, cut about seven minutes from the film. Despite being shorn of some of its sexual scenes, the film's mainland version has still won acclaim among most viewers.
 
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2007)