Just focus on the pretty stuff.

This film doesn't have a release date in North America yet, but here in Hong Kong it was our pick two nights ago for a family movie night. While it was enjoyable enough to pass some 2 hours, the more I think about it the more I begin to feel ambivalent.

Set in WW2 Shanghai right before the Pearl Harbour bombing, the plot revolves around American agent Paul Soames (John Cusack) investigating the murder of his friend Connor (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). While navigating the webs of alliances and corruption between the Chinese and Japanese, he falls in love and finds himself taking sides in an escalating war that could cost him his life. I guess you would classify the film as a mystery drama or thriller, but although suspense is maintained, the audience is very much walked through the story and there aren't any ingenious twists to keep you on your toes. Let's just say that when all is revealed, it's nothing jaw-dropping.

Can we talk about this badass cast? Well, except maybe John Cusack, who will always be that jerk guy from High Fidelity to me. Although he did carry the film better than I thought he would, I'm not sure if I've seen a sadder slimeball of a spy. Ken Watanabe plays Japanese Captain Tanako who has a shady alliance with Chinese mafia leader Anthony Lanting, played by Chow Yun-fat. The last film I saw Chow in was the atrocity of Dragonball, where he gave me enough second-hand embarrassment to vanquish all my childhood traumas, so it was good to see him back in a dignified role. Finally, Gong Li (flawless, perfect, doesn't age, goddess) takes on a femme fatale inspired role as Langting's wife Anna, who is secretly part of the Chinese resistance unbeknownst to her husband.

Although all three Asian leads give strong performances, the fact remains that they were cast for star power more than anything else, and what's more, typecast in roles that honestly could have been played by anyone who looked good in uniform, a trench coat, or a cheung sam. I really wish Hollywood would start giving more cred to Chinese and Japanese actors who are capable of so much more than lending an "authentic" aesthetic or delivering moral maxims and mysterious or sinister smiles. It's not that these characters were stereotypes or strictly one-dimensional, but their ~inner-conflicts and secretz~ were just as unoriginal and predictable as the classic trope of White Man Falling in Love With Married Asian Beauty.

Can it even really be called a spoiler to say that sexual tension brews between Soames and Anna from the very moment they sit opposite each other at a casino table? While there's nothing inherently wrong with Anna's sensual charm and Soame's understandable attraction to her, what bothers me is the way she eventually reciprocates these feelings. There's a really uncomfortable scene when Soames confronts her about using everyone in her life for the cause of the resistance, which according to him is really a personal vendetta for her father's death. It's not that he's yelling in her face and literally shaking her by the head --there's nothing wrong with an intense, angst-filled face-off between a man and a woman. It's the fact that it's immediately after this violent outburst that Anna "crumbles" and throws herself into his arms with tears streaking down her face. OMG ANGRY PASSIONATE MAKE OUT TIME, DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by such a gratuitous hook-up --I was basically waiting for it to come and go so I could get over the awkwardness of sitting between my dad and brother --but I have a real problem with scenes that show a woman's favourable response to displays of aggression. In this case, it's made worse by the inconsistency of Anna's character, who a) does love her husband and b) is very much her own woman who takes charge of her own operations, so you can't even argue that her submission is in keeping with the gender roles of the time period. Speaking of gender roles, I guess I also shouldn't be surprised that the betraying nature of a woman is a recurring theme throughout the film. But I can still be annoyed.

In theatre, it can be a backhanded compliment to say that the "production value" of the play was amazing when everything else was a shit show. While Shanghai is far from being a drag and will at least have you going with the motions, what I liked best about about it was probably the cinematography and throwback to film noir with some great compositions of light, shadow and rain. I'm also a sucker for that period look of the 1940s, and the grit and glamour setting of Shanghai was especially visually delicious due to the multiple national sectors the city was divided into at the time. Interesting fact to note is that filming took place in Thailand due to the sensitive subject matter, which led to the original filming permit in China being taken away. Chinese government: 1 Weinstein Company: 0. At least the two-block set that was built in Bangkok looks pretty amazing. Add to that the suits, fedoras and umbrellas and you just might forget the other inadequacies.

This stunning queen thanks you for your time.

Um.

"...Ghana is already a dumping ground for Europe's electronic waste, with containers full of broken cell phones, computer hard drives, and TVs arriving each month in the port of Tema, near Accra. European laws prohibit the export of this dangerous waste, but labeling the trash as a "charitable donation" offers a loophole."

- Sylvie Stein, "The YIMBYS"

Lessons from the Middle Kingdom.

On relatives: If you engage in conversation with any adult over 30, something like 10 minutes will be dedicated to how tall you are, how much you've grown, how much you can still grow, how tall your brother is, how much taller he can still grow, how tall you both are compared to every other kid they know. I don't know what it is about height that's so grippingly important, but it's probably some national inferiority complex.

On traffic: When I got into my first taxi, I noticed there were no seat belts in the back. Then I started wondering whether the customary bars implemented between the front and back seats were meant to protect the driver from shady clients....or me from a shady driver. Then my driver started yelling across the car to talk to another taxi driving beside us, whilst still driving himself. Then I figured I had a shady driver and reached for my seat b--nevermind.

On streets: 6 lanes, no pedestrian crossings. Do or die.

On food: The French have an ally in frogs' legs. And it tastes better than chicken. And yes, that is a piece of tortoise shell. And yes, I passed on that.

On Mao:

If there's a market for getting oneself photoshopped in a manly handshake with the guy, he evidently still matters.

Heroin chic.

I finally figured out the needle-looking tracks on my arms are in fact poison ivy rashes that I probably got from wading through the mountains looking for my grandma's grave (not even exaggerating).....fack on a flying fuck. So of course I did the sensible thing and started Googling everything about it, finding gems of valuable information:

"The oil from poison ivy is extremely stable and will stay potent -essentially forever."

THANKS, POISON-IVY.ORG. And no thanks, I do not want to view your "rash slide show."

Familial obligations.

Caffiend.

In Tours, there were no Starbucks or Second Cups. I didn't see a single person walking around with a to-go cup. And I didn't go a day without un café. Usually with a macaron to nibble on. Once with a cigarette. Always on the patio. Never for an all-nighter.

Ordering a dainty but potent shot of espresso was the best (and cheapest) way to justify sitting at a sunny table for 3 to 4 hours reading, writing and -my personal favourite -people watching. What we call coffee shops they call salons de thé. Sounds way classier and reminds me of the literary and art salons of 1930s Paris, but really they were pretty small and normal looking with the bonus of outdoor seating and good pastries.

Funny thing about Tours and coffee though -and I wonder if this is true of other areas in France -is that, at least in Place Plumereau (which is a local and tourist hot-spot), hot beverages are not served after a certain time at night. So quite literally, you cannot order a coffee, decaf or tea after 9 or 10pm even though the creperies and little restaurants stay open until well after midnight. We kept forgetting this fact when we were out late, and finally after being embarrassingly reminded yet again by a friendly waiter one night, we asked (out of curiosity, not indignation) why this rule existed. He gave us this very amused grin before giving his best shot at an unconvincing answer.

"That's a very good question. I've lived here all my life and I'm not sure why it's this way. But hot beverages take a longer time to prepare, so maybe that's why."

A longer time to prepare, really? Compared to a crepe or one of your mega-gelato-fruit-chocolate-everything dessert creations? Personally, I think it has more to do with money and turnover of tables since coffees are the least expensive item on the menu for the most disproportionate amount of acceptable "sitting-time." Or maybe French people just don't drink coffee and other hot things at night. Maybe that's considered totally plebeian. Maybe the French way of night dining is to inadvertently get drunk off an opaque glass of heavily concentrated sangria. Not that I did. (I totally did.)

Weird rules aside, the best espresso I had was actually in Langeais, a tiny town 30km west of Tours with a castle smack bang in the middle, hanging out with the other buildings like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I wasn't exaggerating about the castle thing.

It was the morning after I'd arrived here on my weekend biking trip with Christie that we sat down for a breakfast coffee at this place next to our hotel (which deserves a post in itself). There are several reasons why this particular instance of caffeine consumption stands out in my memory.

1) It was genuinely an amazing coffee, the kind where the bitterness isn't acidic and leaves a natural sweetness behind in the back of your throat.

2) I stupidly spilled 1/3 of it, being the klutz I am.

3) Everyone else around us was drinking alcohol. At 10 in the morning. There was a table of around 8 old, gruff men who looked like they could have been war veterans, and they were leaving when we ordered. Leaving behind empty bottles of wine and champagne.

I bet they had an amazing Sunday.

"And as we sat there listening to the carolers, I wanted to tell Brian it was over now and everything would be okay. But that was a a lie, plus I couldn't speak anyway. I wished there was some way for us to go back and undo the past. But there wasn't. There was nothing we could do. So I just stayed silent, trying to telepathically communicate how sorry I was about what had happened. And I thought of all the grief and sadness and fucked up suffering in the world and it made me want to escape. I wished with all my heart that we could just leave this world behind. Rise like two angels in the night and magically disappear."

- Neil McCormick, Mysterious Skin