Movie Review: Hidden Blade

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Hidden Blade is a twisty Chinese spy movie with its politics on its sleeve.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Cast: Tony LEUNG, WANG YiBo, Chengpeng DONG, ZHOU Xun, Eric WANG, HUANG Lei
Rating: ★★

Any movie inherently has some measure of propaganda in it by nature of the biases and perspectives of the filmmakers and producers, but there are also specific things which tend to be (or are always) censored or minimized. If you want help from the Pentagon, for example, you can’t portray the military negatively in your movie.

If you want to release a movie in China, for example, you can’t portray China or the Communist Party negatively. There are movies that do one of those but never those problematic pairs -- at least not in any obvious way. So you know that watching a Chinese spy movie taking place in World War 2 must be heavily biased towards being pro-Communist and anti-the old Chinese government. Just the cost of doing business -- doesn’t mean the movie can’t be any good.

Hidden Blade is a Chinese film from director/writer Cheng Er, taking place in the middle of the Second World War in Shanghai while under Japanese occupation. We soon learn that it is shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but the movie also utilizes a somewhat non-linear structure, revealing things over time and showing secrets and the true loyalty of double or triple agents eventually, leaving things heavily mysterious for a while.

This is initially a little confusing, as we’re dropped into a scene in the middle of the story, which doesn’t fully get resolved until we catch up to it later. The main character of the movie (for the most part) is Director He (Tony Leung), ostensibly working for the Japanese military as a sort of counter spymaster to Chinese resistance fighters -- or is he?

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The Director mainly fights his battles in the shadows or with firearms by surprise -- there are a few fun shoot-outs and brawls later on in the movie, although there really could’ve been more. It’s a very slow burn story for a long time. The movie finally gets interesting when people start dying and loyalties are tested, but I could easily see most audience members getting bored with the intentionally confusing narrative until then.

There’s a slickness to the production, though, and a well-handled perspective behind the camera, even if sometimes the story can be a little inert. Other intelligence operative Mr. Ye (Wang Yibo) has many shades of morality and is an engaging presence, although he pales before Tony Leung’s effortless charisma.

There are basically two female characters to care about, one a femme fatale type and the other a supportive partner type, neither is particularly interesting sadly. The backdrop of the political situation is a little fascinating from the Chinese perspective, and the film does present a little complexity in some (if not most) of its Japanese antagonists. Some of course are straight out monstrous thugs.

This isn’t really an action-heavy movie enough for such fans of that sort of movie, nor is the spy angle really as compelling enough due to the slow pacing of the movie. I think that a more tightly handled version of the script would be more interesting -- I can’t expect anything other than a pro-Communist movie from China though, but maybe the non-linear nature could’ve been ditched for a more clear, engaging script. You never know the true constraints of the filmmakers though, until you’ve been there.

Hidden Blade has a run time of 2 hours 8 minutes and is not rated.

  

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