Review of Shanghai

Before watching, this film appeared to have everything going for it. A great cast, an eve of WW2 setting, an exotic location and an old fashioned thriller. After the first hour I dropped off to sleep, but at least I had put the DVD on pause, so two hours later I woke up to finish it. By the end I was baffled as to what it was all about, so I watched it a second time being more refreshed by my nap. The plot still escaped me. John Cusack in a white tuxedo in a casino where he spots a beautiful mysterious woman in distress who has a husband and who manages to keep out hero guessing with various cryptic hints of what? Cigarettes proffered from gold cases, sundry Asians popping in and out, lots of shootings and bombings, lots of blood, pouring rain, dark wet streets, more killings - in other words a by the numbers confusing parody of film noir which could have been much better.

All I gleaned from the story was that John Cusak had been assigned to Shanghai and as soon as he got there, his friend was murdered while he was with a woman, who was somehow involved with a Japanese officer and addicted to opium. A couple of characters needed to be smuggled out of Shanghai, I know not why, and no one could catch a train or boat without struggling through hordes of extras. I only barely figured out why John Cusack, Ken Wantanabe, Gong Li and Chow Yun-Fat were in the story, but the rest went over my head. I never did work out who was working for whom or which side they were on.