Lan xin da ju yuan

Shanghai 1941. It’s the first week of December, and tension is mounting by the hour. Everybody is nervous, and trusting the wrong person could be a deadly mistake. For four years now, the Chinese metropolis has been occupied by the Japanese army, except for the British and French Concessions. It’s there that Lou Ye’s stylish, dimly lit black-and-white spy drama takes place. Famous actress Jean Yu has returned to Shanghai to play the leading role in a play called “Saturday Fiction” directed by her former lover Tan Na. But is this the only reason she’s back in town? Obviously not, as we soon learn. She’s been performing all kinds of dangerous missions for the Allied intelligence, and the one she’s now determined to carry out is probably the riskiest of all. Frederic, her French foster father, and Saul, a Jewish-Viennese refugee running the luxurious Cathay Hotel, have set her up to obtain top-secret information from a high-ranking Japanese agent – a task for which she will need her best acting skills. Chinese icon Gong Li excels in this film, which bears a certain resemblance to CASABLANCA, except for the fact that no scenes offer comic relief. (Andreas Ungerböck)