Meili (Vivian Wu) lived what looked to be the perfect life, with a loving husband, a young son and a matronly maid/nanny, Wei Ma (Zhengwei Tong), who not only helps her raise her son, Bebe (Yao Lu), but also had helped to raise her when she was young. Everything falls apart, however, when her husband is killed while on a business trip. Her sorrow and fear turn to hatred and she seeks revenge; something that Mr. Feng (You Ge), a partner at her husband's company, is more than happy to help her direct. For each target, Meili changes into a shocking red dress and large, dark black sunglasses. She looks nothing like her self (and reminded me a bit of Trinity from The Matrix, but with more color), adopting another persona to carry out her vengeance.
Soon, she loses the stomach for killing, when she sees her latest target as a caring father with a wife and daughter. Mr. Feng is not ready to let her walk away, however. He attempts to manipulate her, explaining that she must finish the job, or the ones that she lets live will find out about her and she and her son will be in danger.
When she takes a job as an interpreter for an American named Michael Johnson (Richard Burgi, Desperate Housewives), she reluctantly starts thinking about the possibility of letting go of her dead husband and her hatred and moving forward with her life, but stories are starting to unravel, and it looks like nothing is as it seems. However, Meili is desperate to find out the truth and, in the end, she will find help from someone you might not expect.
Shanghai Mystery does provide an intriguing story, and does a good job of meting out the story bit-by-bit, allowing the viewers to find surprises here and there. Mind you, to do this, the movie doesn't follow a single straight timeline. The action is set in an interrogation room, as a lawyer (Honglei Sun) is trying to get Meili's account of events. The story as we hear it takes place, primarily, as she's recounting it. The events are not necessarily chronological, as there are sometimes references or flashbacks to earlier events. I actually enjoyed the way the story unfolded, but it's worth mentioning that the story shifts back and forth, as some people may have a hard time following the story. Shanghai Mystery is nowhere near as difficult to follow as Memento, however.
The acting is great, the story is interesting and the directing is well done. The music is also very pleasant Orchestral Chinese music that I had no problem listening to on the title screen for several replays while I was surfing on the web after watching the movie.
Dramatic mysteries aren't my typical sort of flick, but this one was actually quite entertaining. The only thing that annoyed me was the lack of an all-English audio track. When I watch a film that is in a language I understand, I'm watching a movie. When I'm watching a movie that I have to use subtitles for, I'm basically watching a movie and reading all of the dialogue. I much prefer being able to simply watch a movie rather than trying to watch and read at the same time, but as it turns out, having a movie that switches back and forth between these modes is worse, as each time I get settled in to comfortably just "watching" the film, I get to a spot that I have to start reading again. I can see that the fact that Meili works as an interpreter and that certain conversations are only understood by some of the people plays an important part in the movie, but it still was a bit frustrating at times when dialogue would switch back and forth between languages. If you're a fan of foreign films (or if you speak English and Mandarin), I highly recommend Shanghai Mystery.
