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 Nov. 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.