‘Hidden Blade’ (review)

Hidden Blade is a 2023 Chinese historical thriller directed by Cheng Er (The Wasted Times) and stars the great Tony Leung (Hard Boiled, Shang Chi), Wang Yibo (Chinese Odyssey Part 3), and Zhou Xun (Cloud Atlas, The Banquet).

The film was picked up for distribution in North America by Well Go USA for theatrical release opening on February 17th.

One of the most interesting developments in Asian cinema over the last ten years or so is a film noir revival in the films of Mainland China.

While Hong Kong has been awash in doomed cops and criminals playing out their dangerous games for the entirety of my life on this planet (1986 was the real jumping off point with John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow and Ringo Lam’s City on Fire both starring Chow Yun-Fat), the cinema of the mainland has mostly been associated with realism, social commentary, and stories about individuals caught in the pressures of the material conditions of society.

Good films to be sure, films that do very well at the Berlin Film Festival, but aren’t necessarily crowd pleasers.

Cheng Er, along with Diao Yinan (The Wild Goose Lake) and Jia Zhangke (A Touch of Sin) has been at the forefront of this revival making quality films that are sometimes banned in their native country but exported due to their obvious quality as prestige pictures internationally. Cheng’s latest, Hidden Blade, is a little easier to digest for national censors due to its World War II setting, making it a companion piece to films like The Battle of Lake Changjin.

This will also mean that the film will deal with accusations of being CCP propaganda, but in the case of Hidden Blade the story is suffused with a kind of John le Carré moral malaise that would seem to be antithetical to the idea of war propaganda.

Hidden Blade is not a good movie.

It was fantastically well made, and one of the best looking films I’ve seen in years. The central performance by Tony Leung as a nameless double agent working for the CCP against Japanese occupiers, is exceptional. Perhaps in its original language, or in a longer cut which fills in some of the connective tissue of the story, the film is a masterpiece but in its current form it is almost inscrutable.

This reviewer prides himself on specializing in Far Eastern cinema and bringing an informed, sympathetic eye to films that don’t normally get it, but here I have to throw up the white flag. Imagine if Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, already a film that demands rapt attention consistently, was also told in a series of vignettes that flowed in a kind of free association style. Unusual story structures and intricate plotting is actually a feature we’re seeing a lot more from Mainland art films, but Hidden Blade takes it to an almost absurd degree.

What makes it worse is that unlike Lust/Caution which has a similar thematic structure, setting, and the same central star, no one besides Leung is particularly memorable here. Wang Yibo seems lost in the quagmire of his character’s myriad motivations, the Japanese are all cartoonishly evil as one would expect, but this film really needed a foil for Leung who plays the whole thing with a pleasant detachment and Cheshire Cat grin that makes him magnetic even when the picture’s compass is broken.

Not Recommended

2 out of 5 stars