8.06.2008

skeptical about shanghai

As much as I like John Cusack as an actor, and I love a cast that boasts Gong Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi, I just can't seem to get excited about their latest movie Shanghai, now filming in Bangkok. The production, which we first heard about last year, recently invited press for a set visit: Cusack calls 'Shanghai' unique opportunity.

Cusack plays an American intelligence official who investigates a friend's death in Japanese-occupied Shanghai in 1941 in the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the U.S. into World War II. Don't know much more than that, except that Gong Li plays "a mysterious woman who deals with the underworld." Oooh.

Yes, once again, it goes to show that you can have a movie set in any part of the world, in any era of human history... and still find a way to make the protagonist a white American guy. You gotta love it.

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