Release Date in Taiwan: June 30, 2010
When I first heard of the film SHANGHAI without knowing any details about it my immediate reaction was “how appropriate! As all eyes are on Expo 2010 Shanghai now here comes a film to pay homage to the Paris of the Orient!” Then as I began searching for more information regarding the film I was surprised to learn that it’s an American production. And more surprisingly it’s really a brainchild of Mike Medavoy, one of the film producers and it took 8 years in the making. Medavoy was born in Shanghai in January 1941 and his family fled to Chile after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
SHANGHAI was set to begin shooting in 2008 but was bogged down by delays caused by many reasons, including the Chinese authority. As a result this film was shot in Thailand where Shanghai’s international settlement was re-created.
The cast include Gong Li, John Cusack, Ken Watanabe﹙THE LAST SAMURAI﹚and Chow Yun-Fat – a good looking cast that comes with acting skills. Supposedly at one point Johnny Depp was interested in the project. Just imagine Johnny Depp depicting an American undercover special agent in 1940 Shanghai and falling in love with Gong Li…What will that be like?
Most of the dialogues are in English with little Mandarin and Japanese mixed in-between. In a film production like SHANGHAI where majority of the cast have to speak a foreign language the challenge can be a setback for those who are not fluent in the main language used throughout the film because they put in all efforts on trying to memorize lines that are foreign to them and fail to deliver the performance. Acting ability is demonstrated through intense comprehension of spoken language as well as body language. Good actors can master both because they don’t just say their lines. They become the characters they depict and win you over without trying to convince you. You can always tell when an actor simply says the line without really understanding what it means. Hence this is a common problem among those cross-cultured international film productions and SHANGSHAI was no exception.
You’ll get a bit of everything from this film, drama, thriller, suspense and romance. To make the long story short John Cusack goes to Shanghai trying to solve the mystery of his best friend’s murder; he meets Gong Li and is intrigued by her. Soon he meets her husband, played by the legendary Chow Yun-Fat who’s working for the German and the Japanese in order to protect his asset. The covert operation to assassinate Japanese is like a daily routine. When John Cusack finds himself intertwined in this mess he has to do all he can to complete his mission and saves the woman he loves.
The moral of the story really comes down to love. I especially praise the performance of Chow Yun-Fat. He may not the leading actor in this film but every time he appears he lights up the screen and steals the scene. He is so versatile that he can do any type of genre and be good at it. SHANGHAI brings out his best and reminds us why we fell in love with him for the last 30 years.
