This review may contain spoilers
Weak story plot and plenty of anachronisms
This is the case of an obviously expensive production with great cinematography, that fails due to its weak and inconsistent and not particularly original and engaging story plot and the inability of the director to recreate the era that this story is supposed to take place.The casting was good but the scenes look like they were patched randomly together making the film look like it is made by two different story lines that come together out of the blue. The film also suffers from uncountable anachronisms that make the movie look like Mission Impossible going into Dr. Who!
Spoilers below:
The ML goes as an agent in Shanghai to support the local resistance movement against Japanese occupation .
The FL though is just a student who ends up cooperating with the ML agent out of the blue. How these two ended up together to play the married couple is not explained. It just happens in the middle of the film. And then the film turns into something else.
Now as I said previously the film suffers from uncountable anachronisms. Early on in the film we see the ML character changing his appearance with the use of latex make up prosthetics that didn't exist not even as an idea back in the late 30s in Chinese Shanghai. They appeared first as experimental and very expensive make up options in Hollywood in 1939 because Hollywood productions had the means, the people and the budget to have such kind of prosthetics. Where the heck did the ML character find liquid latex in Shanghai? And who applied this thing in his face by the time that this thing needs to be custom made??
Another anachronism is the selfi photo that one of the agents takes at some point in the film with a manual 35mm film camera. This is impossible simply because the camera lenses of that era didn't have auto focus options. You couldn't photograph yourself by simply turning the camera towards your face! And the 35mm films were not rolled into plastic cases fgs!
The karateka pro Japanese lady is like she escaped from an 1980's James Bond film. Her appearance, her hair, her behaviour all about everything on her are out of the concept of that era. Same applies to the agents/spies guys that follow her who wore black coats that closed with zippers in the front. These kind of minimal coats first appeared in fashion in TV shows like the 1960s Avengers, Barbarella and such things. These are very 1960's fashion elements unheard back in the 1930s.
The huge aquarium with the large glass panels, the white super modern Yamaha grant piano, ( Yamaha didn't produce white pianos back then and it didn't use the logo that is using now ) generally whatever is shown in the ball room scene is product of the imagination of the director but didn't exist back then. Either because they didn't have the technology to have it or because it wasn't in fashion.
Generally speaking anachronisms might work and enhance the visuals of fantasy films, but they can destroy historical fiction films. If the director wanted so desperately to include them, ( I want to believe that it was intentional and it wasn't a product of his ignorance) he should't have had specify in the first place, the era that this story is taking place.
Anyway...
5 out of 10 from me. MDL suggested an overall rating of 4 but I 'm giving to this film another point just for the sake of the cinematography and the expensive production.
Was this review helpful to you?
