Shanghai

Shanghai is a period crime drama set in the Chinese city in 1941, a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Japanese forces occupied it. An American, Paul Soames, arrives and learns that a close friend has been killed. His attempt to find out what happened draws him into a web of conspiracy and deceit involving the local underworld, a Japanese intelligence officer, and a charismatic gangster and his wife, with whom Soames becomes romantically involved. What begins as an investigation into a single death opens onto a larger secret.

Mikael Håfström directed, working from a screenplay by Hossein Amini. The film is the fifth feature Håfström directed, arriving between 1408 and The Rite. John Cusack plays Soames, with Gong Li as Anna Lan-Ting, Chow Yun-fat as Anthony Lan-Ting, Ken Watanabe as Tanaka, David Morse as Richard Astor and Franka Potente as Leni Müller; the production credits 41 cast members and 77 crew.

Made for a budget of about 50 million US dollars, the film took roughly 9 million dollars worldwide, a wide gap between cost and return. On IMDb it holds 6.3 out of 10 from around 11,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.1 from about 200. A critics' rating of 4.4 out of 10 from 23 reviews places it noticeably below the audience scores.