Shanghai (2010)

It isn't difficult to understand why this hackneyed piece of rubbish has gone std. It must contain every cliché ever used by every other film-maker of a ww2 period drama set somewhere 'exotic'. Every whitefella and even some of the unwhites, gets about in a white linen suit and panama. Cigarette holders (ivory & jade carved of course), a casino, unrequited love, spies, bad eggs plus the occasional good egg hiding among the bad 'uns Claude Rains style, every cliché is there and yet as a movie this thing doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy plagiarism. Un-engaging is how I would best describe it. The plot is predictable, the costumes are uninspired and the actors frequently appear to be doing little more than any decent clothes horse would. So much could have been done in this movie. Surely the US is mature enough now for a complete re-examination of what really happened in the years leading up to Pearl Harbour, and take ownership of their role in inciting the Japanese American conflict. You won't find any of that here. The Japanese and Germans are all evil. There is no attempt whatsoever to consider the reasons Japan decided that an attack on Pearl Harbour was its last best option. People are portrayed as worrying about the fate of Jews when contemporary accounts actually reveal that was the last thing on the minds of the soon to be allies before and during WW2. Race was a factor in the war in the Pacific, although not quite the way it was portrayed here. The Japanese were accepted by a big chunk of the middle class indigenous populations of the English and French colonies they invaded, as freeing those societies from white anti-Asian racism. After all the Japanese were Asian as well. It wasn't until after WW2 that persecution of the Jews by the European Nazis was reported as a major issue.None of these distortions are exclusive to this movie, there have been a zillion others just like it. But why bother to spend all this money on yet another ho-hum cliché full of cartoon characters, that doesn't even come close to any sort of historical accuracy? WW2 is sufficiently distant now that objective assessment should be a hallmark of any movie about that period which is aiming for A grade status.

Reading the other reviews, I can hardly believe I watched the same movie. While there were a few good scenes, on the whole this was a crummy movie.So, we start with a reasonably believable premise for a thriller: Shanghai in 1941 definitely did have Japanese who were not nice. There definitely were Chinese collaborators who were not nice. There were large gambling establishments and a certain amount of glamour (along with a lot of horrible misery) in Shanghai at the time. Stuff was going on in the run-up to Pearl Harbor and the U.S. was not the entirely innocent, naive, passive bystander that U.S. elementary school textbooks portray. So... a U.S. Naval Intelligence guy undercover in Shanghai in late 1941? Great premise for a fiction movie! Add a first class Japanese and Chinese cast and a good to excellent American cast. Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat are among the best China (Hong Kong) has to offer and they have done stellar work in other movies. Ken Watanabe is arguably the best living Japanese actor at the moment and was outstanding in "Inception", the "Last Samurai" and dozens of others. John Cusak was excellent in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" Mix in a large amount of effort, opulent sets, tons of money....AND....somehow end up with a wooden turkey! I ordered the DVD and we set it up with our projector at home. Primarily, it was my son studying history at the Naval Academy and speaks Japanese - very interested in the subject) and I watching while my Japanese wife dozed off happily on the couch.The first clue was the subtitles. As a multilingual household we always check the options. We were surprised to find that this was an English language movie...OK...there was a certain logic to that. Should we turn on the English subtitles? Naw... that would be silly. We started the movie. One minute into the action we were stopping the movie to turn on the English subtitles. Why? Ken Watanabe was mumbling and unintelligible.This wasn't the fault of Ken Watanabe. He did fine job delivering perfectly intelligible and compelling dialog in "Inception". Poor speech intelligibility is the symptom of sloppy production.Next problem was the wooden script. The constant stopping for the Chinese or Japanese characters to apologize for speaking their own language might be believable for someone who has never actually been in the Far East. Real life is rarely like that. When you are the lone American in a room full of Japanese or Chinese, they are pleasant and polite, but by no means do they stop every 30 seconds to apologize for speaking their own language.At first I thought that the stiff performances might be the result of forcing otherwise outstanding Japanese and Chinese performers to speak in English. However, as I continued to watch the rest of the movie, I realized that the native English speakers weren't doing much better.By the end of the movie, the problem was clear: the script writer was desperately trying to scrape together every cliché in the history film noire and somehow stuff it into the movie. Less would have been more.Ang Lee's "Lust Caution" (based on the semi-autobiographical short story by Eileen Chang) is a much better movie on roughly the same subject. By the way, I has the same reaction as the only other reviewer who wasn't enthusiastic: I thought this movie was "borrowed" from "Lust Caution". However, in poking around at the background, it looks like this one took almost 10 years to get produced...meaning the initial story predated "Lust Caution".I love the subject material and all the performers...Too bad "Shanghai" wasn't a better movie.

I have really enjoyed this excellent movie, since i love war films. This one is about a pre-Pearl Harbor Shanghai, where Japanese, Chinese, Nazi, American intelligence services clash, and it's common people who make history. John Cusack is a great choice for the main role, and he delivers his part impeccably. Being a secret agent, he is deeply sensitive and sensible man, who wants to reveal some mysteries and he is right in the whirlwind of a war craze. Other actors include Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li, among others, and they all do great jobs. Japanese soldiers fight the Chinese partisans, Americans try to find out what they think will help... and all this is a dizzying background to a deep touching story of love, hate, cowardice, friendship, bravery and valor. This movie is highly recommended

I expected a lot with an international heavy weight cast like this one. All the way to the smallest characters are filled with great actors. The cinematography is excellent and successfully recreates the feel of 40's Shanghai, along with the a secretive atmosphere that enhances the film noir mood. The story moves at a good pace where there isn't a scene too many and you have to keep your mind working to uncover the mysteries Paul Soames is trying to solve.The excellent cast doesn't disappoint, John Cusack is solid and believable as an agent posing as a journalist. It's not hard to understand he would fall for the insanely beautiful Gong Li who seems to have found a fountain of youth somewhere. She plays the role of Anna Lan-Ting with a seductive and secretive flavor which is a joy to watch. Her husband, mob boss Anthony Lan-Ting, is being played by Hong Kong icon Chow Yun Fat who exudes charm and power but still manages to walk the fine line of a character you feel attracted to but also know you should actually stay away from. His performance adds the right amount of flair the production needs. Ken Watanabe plays out his sinister vibe along with a human grace perfectly and Jeffrey dean Morgan is believable as the friend who ended up dead.Instead of a movie about politics and war, it's more about human relations and the different side to people. How people are used and mislead at times like this, and matters of the heart play an important role in the decisions the characters make.If you are open to a movie that makes you think and wonder, you will definitely love 'Shanghai'. The only thing that I did not get into was the romance-angle between John Cusack and Gong Li.... but maybe that's how it's meant to be. It's easy to see why he would fall for her but she, on the other hand, might have a whole different agenda.