‘Hidden Blade’: An espionage story set in wartime Shanghai

A spy story set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, populated with undercover resistance fighters, featuring Tony Leung (梁朝偉 Liáng Cháowěi) as a collaborationist. No, it’s not Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. It’s writer-director Chéng Ěr 程耳’s latest feature, Hidden Blade (in Chinese, 无名 wú míng, which literally means “anonymous” or “nameless”).

Cheng’s stylized vision of WWII-era Shanghai follows two protagonists in a story that unfolds in a clumsy, over-repetitive non-linear fashion. They are Mr. Ye, a phlegmatic henchman played by pop-star-turned-actor Wáng Yībó 王一博, and his enigmatic higher-up Mr. He, acted by Tony Leung (Days of Being Wild, etc.), both working with a Japanese general (Hiroyuki Mori). But this is a Chinese espionage story and so the question remains: “Who’s the secret Communist,” a.k.a., the good guy?

For what it’s worth, the film doesn’t fixate on the characters’ political identities for the most part, and Cheng keeps the audience guessing. The narrative jumps back and forth between 1938, 1941, and 1945, while the larger story unfolds as Communist agents turn to subterfuge to take down the hated occupying force and their puppet government in China.

Timed to the occasion when millions visit cinemas over a weeklong Spring Festival holiday, the film opened in China last month to much fanfare and even more controversy. With a current score of 6.7 out of 10 on review platform Douban, its page on the website displays a message that notes the highly polarized nature of audience reviews thus far. As can be seen from the trailer, the film strives for a pensive, moody atmosphere through its cinematography, music, and cast.

It largely succeeds in that goal thanks to a stellar production team. They include costume designers and stylists who worked on Lust, Caution and Hong Kong arthouse filmmaker Wong Kar-wai’s (王家卫 Wáng Jiāwèi) In the Mood for Love, as well as the cinematographer of the highly-acclaimed Chinese remake of 12 Angry Men. Two sequences, featuring a dog running around during a bombing in Guangzhou and Japanese soldiers brutally executing Chinese workers, call to mind memorable equivalents in Schindler’s List. The precisely framed, meticulous camerawork, including some striking aerial shots of war-torn cities, provides a visual feast that one can expect from a big-budget Bona Film Group production.

But the real eye candy lies, of course, in the actors. Hidden Blade is a film that showcases Wang Yibo smoking, dressing, standing, looking at himself in the mirror, and walking around with his hands in his pockets. So much so that one Chinese critic described it as “the inside pages of GQ magazine pretending to be a film.” Better served by the script is Tony Leung. His mannered characterization of Mr. He is reminiscent of Hans Landa, the Nazi antagonist from Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. The influence is hard to miss: He’s first appearance in the film takes the form of an unnerving interrogation that he conducts.

The greatest inspiration on Hidden Blade comes from Cheng’s own The Wasted Times, a 2016 over-the-top star-suspense drama also set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. But both in terms of plotting and scene-setting, Cheng repeats himself a bit too much, and not for the better. From his penchant for displaying local food (dim sum, pork ribs, wine-steeped shrimp) through the copious use of different dialects and languages (Shanghainese and Cantonese mixed with Mandarin and Japanese) to his choppy and labored editing, Cheng’s latest proves a pretentious, ungainly pastiche of his earlier film. All “vibes” and no substance makes Hidden Blade a dull affair and a wasted time.

Hidden Blade is screening in select theaters in the U.S. and Canada from February 17.