VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Micransix Crappy film

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Dave McClain It's often tough to judge a movie based on its background or its pre-release publicity. Here's a case in point: What if I recommended to you an American movie which was originally shot seven years ago, took two years to edit and was only released overseas, before sitting on a shelf for another five years until finally becoming available in U.S. theaters, only to receive a 5% critics rating from a leading movie rating website? Doesn't sound very promising, does it? Okay. What if I then told you that the movie has an international cast of award-winning actors, some of which are past Oscar nominees, and the script was written by another Oscar nominee? At that point, you might express some interest. You also might remind me that a strong pedigree is no guarantee of a strong movie. And you'd be right. In this case, however, the movie in question - "Shanghai" (R, 1:45) is well worth a look – because of the reputation of the cast and filmmakers, and in spite of the film's long and questionable road to American theaters.With stars from the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Japan, Hong Kong and China, a writer from Iran and a director from Sweden, all working on a film set in China, but also involving the British, Americans, Germans and Japanese and taking place early in World War II, it would be hard to imagine a wider international effort in the service of a more international story. In fact, in its story, international flavor and tone, this neo-noir drama-mystery-romance reminds me more than little of 1943's "Casablanca".It's 1941. World War II is raging in Europe and in Asia, but the United States is still officially neutral. Japan has swallowed up most of China, with the notable exception of one specific area. Shanghai is an international city which is still technically under the control of the Chinese government. In reality, the city is divided into sectors in which various foreign countries have virtual autonomy, a remnant of decades-old trade treaties imposed upon the Chinese by other more powerful nations. Within this large city, there is a British sector, an American sector, a German sector and a Japanese sector. There's an uneasy peaceful coexistence among Shanghai's many nationalities. Tension resulting from various ongoing hostilities and fear of international conflicts spreading hang like a dark cloud over every action and reaction, every conversation, every interaction and every relationship between potential foes.This is the situation in which Naval Intelligence Officer "Paul Soames" finds himself. It's not his real name. Much like everyone around him, there is more to "Paul" than meets the eye. After a stint working undercover in Berlin while posing as a journalist who is a Nazi sympathizer, he is "transferred" to Shanghai to work with a close friend and fellow Naval Intelligence Officer called Conner (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). As Paul arrives in Shanghai, he learns from his handler (David Morse) that Conner has just been murdered. Paul is determined to find out who killed his friend and why, for reasons that are both personal and professional. Solving this mystery will require him to carefully navigate the increasingly shaky relationships between people who seem to trust each other less and less with each passing day.Paul uses friendships that he established back in Berlin, especially with Leni Müller (Franka Potente), as a way of getting to know the major players in Shanghai. Through Mrs. Müller, he meets Japanese army officer Captain Tanaka (Ken Watanabe) as well as a local Chinese crime boss, Anthony Lan-Ting (Chow Yun-Fat), and his wife, Anna (Gong Li), a woman who seems to have more secrets than… well, than China has rice. Paul also makes contact with Conner's informant, Benedict Wong (Juso Kita) and tries to find Conner's mistress, Sumiko (Rinko Kikuchi), who disappeared on the night Conner was murdered. Meanwhile, Paul has to maintain his cover with his British newspaper editor (Hugh Bonneville). Paul has a lot to juggle as he retraces Conner's footsteps to discover the reason for his murder."Shanghai" is a classic neo-noir in every sense of the term. Besides shady characters, an imperfect protagonist, a crime to be solved and various forms of intrigue along the way, its judicious use of narration by Paul, the way the various characters speak to each other, and more than a few surprises and plot twists, should recommend this film to all fans of the genre. It may not have the charm of "Casablanca", but it has even more action and intrigue. This is the best neo-noir since "L.A. Confidential" back in 1997. "Shanghai" should not be judged by the twists and turns that brought it to American theaters, but by the creative and entertaining twists and turns that the film serves up on screen. "A"

John Raymond Peterson They don't make 'em like this anymore. When was the last time you saw a thriller, edge of your seat mystery, action pact, period piece, and relentless pace with a bunch of accomplished and well know actors who ply their skills for the art and not for a big budget by today's terms? This is one. In the tradition of movies like 'The Quiet American' (2002), 'L.A. Confidential' (1997), 'Chinatown' (1974) , "Mulholland Falls' (1996), 'Double identity' (1944 & 1973), 'Touch of Evil' (1958) and even the classic 'The Maltese Falcon' (1941), the movie 'Shangai' seems to stand out today in a sea of glitzy flicks and romantic comedies galore. I was very pleased by its storyline, to see the cast of names I knew and liked, so I jumped at the chance to watch it. It was like re-experiencing movie going fun like I had not in a long time.Considering the cinematography, special effects and staging challenges that brings us back in time to the days preceding Pearl Harbor and in Shangai of all places (what a backdrop), and considering also the cast, if you have cinematic knowledge, it is almost incredible that this film was made at all and more so for a mere $50M budget. I trust the ratings will only keep going up as more viewers record their own ratings, because it deserves better than just 6.5 as of the time of my review. Most of the movies in which company I included 'Shangai' are admittedly better to equal.I was looking for something recent featuring Li Gong because she is one of those actors (actress) who has a knack for picking movies that are excellent and in which she plays roles that are demanding; I came across this movie. I read the names of the cast; I'm a fan of most of John Cusack's work, and the same goes for Yun-Fat Chow, David Morse, Ken Watanabe, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Franka Potente. My movie collection includes several movies from each of them. It goes without saying that I liked it and recommend it.

djhreg 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.

KineticSeoul The plot takes place in Shanghai a part of China the Japanese didn't completely take over yet during the Japanese invasion and occupation of China in 1940's. Jeffrey Dean Morgan has a scene in the beginning a very short scene and you wonder why he would want to be cast for this movie. But he gets some flashback scenes which makes his decision sort of makes sense. Anyways the plot mainly revolves around Paul Soames(John Cusack) investigating a friends death while the Chinese and the Japanese are basically having something similar to a gang war between each other in Shanghai. Mainly between the Chinese resistance and the Japanese servants to their emperor. The movie also has spy elements to it and doing espionage on the Japanese and Nazis, mostly on the Japanese. The flaw of this film is that it just doesn't have good character interactions sometimes and not very clever and sometimes not all that believable. I could tell this movie is a homage to noir and even if the topic at hand is interesting, the movie as a whole just wasn't that great. The movie moves slowly and doesn't cover as much as it should with it's run time. both actors play a role they probably wasn't proud of. Not much is accomplished during the run time of this movie. This is a decent film and a good homage to noir, but I can see why this movie didn't do so well. It just isn't for mainstream audiences and and besides the performances it just seemed like a straight to DVD film despite the large budget. Even if the film to some degree accomplished what it tries to do to some degree. I was disappointed in a way since the movie didn't go the direction I wanted it to go, which isn't anything against this film but my own wants. Mainly because almost all the screen-time is on John Cusack despite it having well known Asian actors. The second most screen-time goes to Gong Li. The biggest reason I wanted to see this movie is because it has Chow Yun-Fat and Ken Watanabe and was expecting a face off between the two different characters these actors will play in a clever manner. Which would have been cool, but that wasn't the case. And another disappointment is how these two Asian actors hardly has any screen-time, their roles are small. The main element that drives this film is the characters impulses and intentions, which will keep you guessing and until everything is put together and everything comes together is a above average manner.7.8/10