Review of Shanghai (1938) by Arsev A — 28 Jan 2011
Muddled. Shanghai tells the story of an American journalist/spy (John Cusack) in Shanghai in the 40's, trying to uncover who was behind the death of his good friend. Now I was actually pretty excited about this when I stumbled upon it.
The reteaming of Cusack and director Mikael Hafstrom (I love me some 1408), some big names on the billing including Ken Watanabe, Chow Yun-Fat, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, what's there not to be excited about? Well somewhere in the writing process this went terribly wrong.
It's ridiculously convoluted and confusing to the point of losing all and any sense of pathos. I spent the majority of this movie not knowing what the hell was going on; it's really kind of a car wreck.
It has all the gloss of a big budget movie, but none of the cohesive structure or writing that makes it all work. Hopefully, they'll recut this before its theatrical run in the States so it will at least make some sense, otherwise it will undoubtedly bomb.
I wanted to like it, but it is way too much of a mess to even begin to get into.
This review of Shanghai (1938) was written by Arsev A on 28 Jan 2011.
Shanghai has generally received mixed reviews.
Was this review helpful?
