Feng sheng

I swear, DO NOT listen to negative comments, which is why I took so, so long to watch this mind boggling, fast paced, amazing film! In the past few wks, I started running more & more into fantastic reviews on The Message, so I finally decided "reluctantly" to watch it! I went ahead and chilled, kicked back with low expectations, and prayed not to fall asleep.

I kid you not! Soon as it started to roll, the suspense and action kicked in! I love the way it started too and it's fast paced. No long drawn out scenes and I didn't take my eyes off the movie once. The acting was fantastic, powerful and intense. And the story was a high level THRILLER with many corners to keep us guessing! Seven to 10 main actors, so don't expect to lose your way in all those Chinese names. That's a good thing! The story-line & plot was so good, they had every loose end covered. It's rare to find a good flick with no holes. There's a lil twist at the end too. I'm not into spy films but this was kick a-- and the Chinese have been throwing out top notch films better than the U.S, Japan and everywhere else in the past 5 yrs. They are truly getting better and better at their game, heheh...I'm so serious. The 2 beautiful female stars were amazing & had our eyes glued to the screen. I loved the way their drama & expressions sucked us into the film and I heard they were nominated against one another for best actress award in this film in the Golden Horse Awards! This is like the 3rd film in 4 wks I ran into with few and bad reviews here, but great reviews elsewhere, which turned out to be EXCELLENT films. If you've become addicted to GOOD films such as I have, YOU WILL LOVE THIS!

The movie is super great, like one of the best Chinese movies, completely out of my expectation. It was trilled, dark, breath holding. So dark and depressing that I can't bear to watch again. But really a good movie, well plotted, can't guess the end until the very last minutes. Definitely would recommend to watch.

The opening of the film already shows some quite different quality from the otherwise dull and hard Chinese films. Visual effect it is, that is what the Chinese doesn't have or has but in a poor way.

However, nice, eyes attracting cg isn't the essence of this film. The script and the performance are the winning factors. Quite like a detective movie, but another way round, "bad" guys searching "good" guys. Clues, dialogs and something unexpected come one after another. Of course, the final answer only shows up in the end. The atmosphere is right: set in a castle, no way to escape, dark and brutal, even bloody. The struggle between Chinese and Japanese in the War time, or to be more general, between the righteous and the evil at that time, is the permanent subject of all time.

Performance of the actors and actresses are beyond reproach. My only disappointment is on Zhou Xu. Nothing in particular, only, say, it can be better.

I have heard that because of the censor some scenes were heavily cut. The cut part must be something even more bloody and scary. However, what should I say, without these scary scenes, the impact of the whole movie would reduce to its half. And I would like to say, the remaining "torture" scenes are not yet entirely convincing, although they are quite enough for the mass majority in China.

In addition, the last scene is quite superfluous, intending to highlight the "old ghost". In an old Chinese saying, painting feet on a snake. In my opinion, silence will do the trick, just let the audience remind themselves.

At the end of the comment: I want more although it is enough!

Only eight people wrote reviews, so i am writing one myself since it is an excellent film to watch.

i watched it on DVD, for some reason, it was too dark throughout the film. I don't know if it is due to the film they used or if they intentionally made it looking so blurry all the time. and the film size is not even full size.

It is a pity that it is a wonderful film, but due to the low DVD quality, it decreases the overall enjoyment.

This film reminds me of "death on the nile". several people got put into a confined place, and one of them is the suspect.

i don't know if this really happened or not, i truly enjoyed it.

Also, I am sure that if the Chinese communist party is not in charge of all films made in mainland china, this film could be more interesting. it still has the undertone to praise how brave the communist workers are. some of the names could be different, such as "communist bandits" instead of "communist party members", etc.

There could be more interesting films made by Chinese filmmakers if the communist party gives up its firm grip of the film producing industry.

Maybe someday Hollywood could also make one just like this one.

Now although china comes out with low class products, this one was actually pretty good. It's like watching a darker version of Clue, but you want the secret spy to succeed in his/her mission. This is a well crafted espionage spy movie without the crazy action or anything like that, but it's like watching a intense game of poker with bluff versus bluff and elimination after elimination. The cinematography was also really well done and lot of the aspects of the film is well crafted to the point you will actually care what happens. Even the conclusion increased the impact of the film. Great production value and a pretty good story and performances makes this film, worthwhile to check out.

7.9/10