Venice Film Review: ‘Saturday Fiction’

), a famous actress who returns to Shanghai in December 1941, ostensibly to appear in a theatrical production directed by and co-starring her old flame Tan Na . Jean’s real reasons for returning are obscure and Hydra-headed: as soon as one is revealed three more pop up.

Along the way Jean encounters : Saul the manager of her French Concession hotel who appears friendly and obsequious but has bugged her phone and monitors her calls; Bai Mei , an “All About Eve”-style Jean Yu stan, aspiring actress, magazine reporter and yes, also a spy, with whom Jean will have a mystifying one-night-stand; Mo Zhiyin , producer of the Tan Na’s play, Japanese collaborator and would-be rapist; Mr Furuya , a Japanese official, who has access to vital secrets regarding Japan’s war...

Mild relief will come to those hardy viewers who make it past the halfway mark, however, as around then, everybody suddenly acquires a gun and it’s a mite easier to work out who is in opposition to whom by where they’re pointing the shooty end. Still, for such a bullet-riddled, betrayal-addled spy thriller, “Saturday Fiction” is a slog, and not even one rescued by Li’s star power or the potential handsomeness of 1941 Shanghai shot in black and white.

It signals a grand missed opportunity for what ought to be a compelling, classy spy caper when even the final big “twist” feels curiously weightless, despite essentially turning the mysterious, tragic Jean into one of history’s great monsters.

Entertainment Entertainment Latest News, Entertainment Entertainment Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Venice Film Review: ‘Babyteeth’You only get one flush of first love, and it tends to choose you rather than the other way round: For most of us, it’s an experiment, a flight test of the heart, a thing you can afford to get…
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »

'The Long Walk' ('Bor Mi Vanh Chark'): Film Review | Venice 2019The third feature from U.S.-born Laotian director Mattie Do premiered in the Giornate degli autori section in Venice before its Toronto bow.
Source: THR - 🏆 411. / 53 Read more »

Venice Film Review: ‘The Painted Bird’Anyone depending on the kindness of strangers is on an especially harsh hiding to nothing in “The Painted Bird,” a child’s-eye Holocaust drama of such unrelenting brutality as to … flochristal finally some light viewing coming our way! :p I need to read this book Met Jerzy Kozinski when I was a child. An intense character. I live in New York. Is there anyway i can find out when this movie will be in theaters? I'm dying to see it.
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »

Venice Film Review: ‘About Endlessness’Whether by accident or design, it is most characteristically droll of Swedish auteur Roy Andersson to title his sixth fiction feature “About Endlessness,” only to have it clock in at ju…
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »

'Guest of Honour': Film Review | Venice 2019David Thewlis and Laysla De Oliveira play a restaurant health inspector and his daughter, a high school music teacher, sifting through their troubled history in the latest drama from Atom Egoyan.
Source: THR - 🏆 411. / 53 Read more »

Venice Film Review: ‘Guest of Honour’It would take more explaining than the film merits to articulate why deep-fried rabbit ears are briefly a plot point in “Guest of Honour,” but so they are: The camera grazes over a plat…
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »