Remake of the homonymous 1945 Shanghai spy thriller, “The Best Secret Agent” is a taiyupian spy thriller, which takes, though, an approach that lingers somewhere between the family drama and the romantic comedy.
The Best Secret Agent is Screening at Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh
As the film starts, Tsui-ying, a young beautiful girl, is roaming the country with her father during the Sino-Japanese war, performing on the street to earn a living. In one instance where her father becomes violent towards her for messing up her routine, she is saved by Ling-yun, a spectator. A bit later, her father dies during a bombing, and the girl ends up in a relationship with her previous saviour. However, as her hate for the Japanese boils, she becomes a member of the Resistance, and agrees to leave Ling-yun, and marry Chao-chun, a rich minister who is one of the main associates of the Japanese in the country, in order to spy on him. Heartbroken, Ling-yun moves to the UK to study, but upon his return, he is to stay with his uncle, who happens to be Chao-chun. As Chao-chun is set on arresting the members of the Chinese resistance, the two former lovers have to face a new set of dynamics, while Chao-chun's daughter starts having feelings for her handsome cousin.
Chang Ying directs a movie that has the base of the spy thriller, and although the standards of the genre are there, with the mystery about who is whom and which “master they are serving”, the film unfolds at least as much as a romance/family drama, with the two love triangles that are eventually shaped being the main element of this aspect. In that fashion, Tsui-ying emerges as a the key persona, since she is a femme fatale that uses her beauty to trick both her husband and the simpleton who is the chief of the anti-resistance force, act as an agent in the field herself, but also has to bury deep her feelings for Ling-yun and her jealousy for his relationship with her step-daughter. The intricate dynamics that are eventually shaped in the story all revolve around her, with Bai Hong giving an excellent performance in the part, if with a bit of excessive theatricality at points.
The second point of focus is Ling-yun, who also suffers on a number of levels, finding very hard to adapt to the new situation, with their common effort of hiding their common past and their present actions adding even more to the pressure both of them feel, although Tsui-ying definitely handles the whole thing better. Ke Jun-xiong's performance is also convincing, but in a less demanding role than his co-protagonist. Also of note are a couple of secondary characters with shady roles, as the main servant of the house, while all the pro-Japanese individuals in the film are portrayed in the worst ways, with Chao-chun being naive and his chief a true buffoon, with the latter also being the main source of comedy in the movie.
Also of note are the interspersed action scenes, which include footage from explosions, but also a plethora of gun action in noir fashion, and even a torture scene, all of which are excellently interspersed throughout the movie, thus providing a welcome relief since the film, in the way it unfolds inside the house, quite frequently looks like a stage play. In that fashion, the editing by Shen Yekang works quite well for the movie, with the same applying to Lin Zanting's cinematography, particularly in the action scenes.
“The Best Secret Agent” is a very entertaining movie, as it includes a number of crowd-pleasing elements, while Chang YIng also manages to present all the comments he wanted to make, in subtle, but also eloquent fashion. The combination of the two is what makes the movie quite easy to watch even today, with the restoration it underwent in 2015, also adding to this fact.
