goforthfunkorkestra .....and excellent performances, stunning sets, top notch direction. Couldn't have been much better. No spoilers here, but if you want to watch a WWII saga that probably has at least some relevance along with some strong emotion, this is a good one. Cusack, as usual, puts in a very solid performance. That guy never gets the props he deserves, imho. David Morse, Yun-Fat Chow, Li Gong, Ken Watanabe et al put in excellent work. I had seen it out there for a long time, just watched it, and will watch it again. Highly recommended. Talk about desperate times!

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.

shanthosh12 Shanghai is a tale of romance and drama before the time of the pearl harbor attack,and is an excellent Noir Film If you're new to the genre.It includes a great ensemble of John Cusack,Li Gong and Ken Watanabe,whose potential steal the show!...The story revolves around Paul Soames(Cusack) who investigates the murder of his friend Conner,who was a fellow spy like himself and who was working inside enemy lines in Shanghai,investigating the troubling relationship between Japan and China.Anna Lan-Ting(Li Gong) meets Soames during a gambling match and John Cusack tries to gets attracted to her(and meets her husband!).Her Husband Anthony Lan-Ting(Chow Yun-Fat) is a major man in Shanghai with political and mafia connections.And it turns out that Anna works with the resistance and the Japanese Captain Tanaka starts to pursue her......The Highlight of the movie is its great atmosphere!(u call it editing,u call it sound design.....both wer gr8!).The cinematography and Lighting wer also equally good from the first shot till the last.....This movie is definitely a must watch either if u like Film Noir or not,All the characters are given equally important roles,even though the story revolves around Soames(A lot Of Cusack Fans in India!) and one can safely say it is the best that Mikael Håfström has created.