Shanghai

Set in a gloomy setting, this is definitely not a must-watch movie in our list. We've been maximizing our movie-going time before the baby arrives. We randomly went for this movie since it seemed like the only one worth watching at that time. Alfred enjoyed the movie; but I had mixed reviews about it. I felt that the movie was a little too draggy and I came out of the cinema theatre not feeling so good - must be due to the gloomy setting of the movie.

The plot: An American man (John Cusack) returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has been killed. While he unravels the mysteries of the death, he falls in love with a Chinese woman (Gong Li) and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding. There is a twist at the end of the movie - that made up for its other weaknesses. With prominent actors on the line-up - John Cusack, Ken Watanabe, Chow Yun-Fat, and Gong Li, I would rate this movie 3/5.