Jiang Wen returns with Republican-era spy comedy
Superstar actor-director Jiang Wen has scored what most hockey fans will recognize as a hat trick, planned or otherwise. Perhaps he was inspired to get into the trilogy game during his foray into the Star Wars universe in Rogue One. Either way, with Hidden Man Jiang has now officially completed his Chinese interwar, “Republican-era” spy comedy series, after 2010’s Let the Bullets Fly and Gone With the Bullets (2014). And once you get past the frantic cutting, stylized dialogue and heightened performances that are initially jarring, Jiang fans will be pleased — and newcomers to his work will feel welcomed. Bordering on farce, Hidden Man is one part romp and one part gentle screed — but mostly romp.
The story starts in a small 1930s farmtype homestead, where a local martial arts master and landlord is celebrating his birthday. When one of his disciples, Zhu Qianlong (Liao Fan, such a standout in Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice) and a Japanese opium dealer, Nemoto (Kenya Sawada), try to swindle his land, the sifu refuses and the treacherous duo kills everyone in the house, burning it to the ground. A young student survives when he runs outside and into a passing car.
Fifteen years later the lone survivor of the massacre, Li Tianran (Eddie Peng, who winds up shirtless within 15 minutes, as he seems contractually bound to) returns to avenge his master’s death. But he’s also an American spy, having spent several years studying medicine in San Francisco, along with martial arts and swordsmanship (again, often shirtless). In the time he’s been away, Nemoto has become Japan’s espionage boss and Zhu has become chief of police, so revenge won’t be easy. Helping Li in all this are Lan Qingfeng (Jiang) and Dr Handler (Andy Friend), who may or may not be kindly spy uncle/fathers, and two beautiful women representing the devil and the angel on his shoulders: star seamstress Qiaohong (Zhou Yun), who is also on a vengeance kick, and Zhu’s mistreated mistress, femme fatale Tang Fengyi (Summer Xu).
Hidden Man isn’t nearly as allegorical as either of the earlier films. Jiang seems to have given up social critique in favor of a more rousing entertainment, defined by double crosses, secret identities and back room deal-making (the plot’s a doozy). That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and Jiang still has plenty to say, albeit with a feather rather than a cudgel. This time around there’s a little bit of Casablanca, a little Hamlet, and a whole lot of Enter the Dragon (Peng and Liao have a great final throwdown), giving the film a more conventional tone.
Production designer Liu Qing is given a free hand to re-create 1930s Beijing, and the result is lush visuals and airy, rooftop cinematography that carry the film along at a robust pace. This is relatively light material for the notoriously prickly Jiang, and if it’s not the searing artistic statement that’s come to be expected of him now, it’s no less engaging for it.