Last weekend, I had the pleasure of watching 风声, Feng Sheng (English title: The Message), an espionage thriller based on a 2007 novel written by Chinese author Jia Mai, set in World War 2 Japanese-invaded China. Not only is the Japanese-controlled puppet government battling resistance from Chiang Kai-Shek, their officials are also being gruesomely assassinated by his spies, something very quickly, and very effectively, established at the beginning of the film.

Enters a lone Japanese commander who takes it upon himself to counter this “insurgency”. He identifies the assassinations to be coordinated by a spy codenamed “Magnum” who is getting intelligence from a mole planted in the puppet government. This mole also has a cool codename: ‘The Phantom”. Because spies always have cool names.

In order to smoke out this mole, Commander Takeda sets a trap by passing down a false message to be transmitted. When it becomes apparent that this message is passed on to the resistance as intelligence, Commander Takeda is then able to narrow down the suspects to the only five individuals to have came into contact with the false message:

• Jin Shenghuo, played by Ying Da, the portly bespectacled man director of the military office through which the message was relayed.
• Wu Zhiguo, played by Zhang Hanyu (also in The Founding of a Republic & Assembly), a veteran soldier who has survived three bullets and serves as captain of a commando unit.
• Gu Xiaomeng, played by Zhou Xun (also in Painted Skin), a lowly dispatcher responsible for sending and receiving morse code transmissions.
• Li Ningyu, played by Li Bingbing, a UPenn Wharton graduate and expert at codes, cyphers, and cryptology.
• Bai Xiaonian, played by Alec Su, the effeminate secretary of a certain Commander Zhang for whom the message was sent to.

Appropriately, Commander Takeda and his appropriately evil Chinese lackey, Wang Tianxiang, gather these five to a secluded and thoroughly spooky mansion (think “castle”) to sort out who’s who. What follows is essentially a small game of Mafia (replete with day and night cycles), as each individual must defend their innocence and help Takeda and Wang figure out which one of them is “The Phantom” before any of them are allowed to leave. Their rooms are bugged, they’re observed, and what begins with some questioning soon becomes horrifying torture with hopes of confession.

Overall, the movie aspires to and captures a certain ambiance best described as “film noir”, but it was inconsistent, sometimes even a bit contrived (look out for the singing in German). Both principal characters, the relationship between Guo Xiaomeng and Li Ningyu was also inescapably awkward. The film suggests that they are close friends — “sisters” even — but their on-screen interactions always felt distant and unconvincing in a way that may reinforce the theme of distrust in The Messagebut also made me wonder if there weren’t some weird lesbian overtones. Of course, that might say more about me than the director.

That all said (and they had to be said), the plot was definitely enjoyable and the movie certainly worth watching.

The Message is subtitled in English and they are decent though, as always, imperfect. Certain scenes such as Li Ningyu’s nude violation scene and some particularly gruesome torture scenes were edited out of the mainland China theatrical release because mainland Chinese people can’t handle boobies and too much violence.