(China) Directed by Jiang Wen. Starring Jiang Wen, Ge You, Chow Yun-fat, Carina Lau. Category IIB. 132 minutes. Opening.

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(USA/China) Directed by Mikael Håfström. Starring John Cusack, Gong Li, Ken Watanabe, Chow Yun-fat. Category IIB, 105 minutes.In this day and age, when virtually every kind of espionage film about World War II set in every single war-torn country has already been made, there has to be a better reason to justify the making of “Shanghai” in 2010 with such a star-studded cast. Unfortunately, Swedish director Mikael Håfström has failed to convince us why we have to sit through 105 minutes of yet more dumb femme fatale clichés.

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(USA) After sitting for almost two years in the editing room, Mikael (1408) Håfström’s troubled, multi-lingual spy-drama starring a bevy of Hollywood and Chinese/Hong Kong cinema heavyweights still looks like a hackneyed piece of work. Sure, the irresistible Gong Li puts up quite a show as a Chinese gangster’s wife working for the Resistance party in late 1941 Shanghai, but most of the cast fail to rise above the film’s overstuffed plot and convolutions.

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