Saturday Fiction has a very attractive premise but it fails to deliver. The movie is set in war torn Shanghai during World War 2. The protagonists find themselves toying the lines between two fractions of Chinese government, Japanese and the Allied forces. The impetus for the plot is staging of a play called Secret Agent featuring a very popular Chinese actress and her former paramour who is directing the play.
The bad news is the movie fails to communicate any of this effectively. The director is obsessed with self indulgent cliched shots. He tries to bring in a personal touch with the handheld camera but he's not competent enough to actually communicate plot effectively so the handheld camera drags on, delivering plenty of pensive shots of the leads staring through windows looking at the rain, smoking and smelling each other. The action is also subpar. As with most movies shot in this style he relies on gunshot loudness to stun the viewer into submission. The movie is also shot in black and white. This neither helped or hindered the movie in my mind however it did highlight the limits of the director even more.
This style directly clashes with his inability to portray a passage of time so he frequently utilizes chirons to explain a day had passed. And ultimately he's left explaining one of the biggest plot points with a chiron in the last quarter of a movie.
The silver lining is the acting. This movie is impeccably cast and the actors go above and beyond to overcome the limits imposed on them by an unimaginative director.
The movie is too long. Too self indulgent but somewhere in there there's a good story - I suspect in the book the movie is based on. If you're a history buff who is already familiar with the World War 2 impact in Asia I suspect you will enjoy this. Otherwise there's plenty of other movies to watch.
