Cliff Walkers

China's official entry to 2022's Oscars is a very good atmospheric historical spy thriller. Although its story is not my cup of tea, I enjoyed it and was involved in it all the time. The story unfolds interestingly and storytelling is beautiful. Cinematography, production design and costume design are all nice. Some scenes are really thrilling and intense.

The topic is a typical Chinese communists theme, i.e., how nationalists persecuted them and communists sacrificed themselves to win the ruling of the country. The movie was directed by the famous director Zhang yimo, who did it for Chinese communist authority, which is understandable. The directing is ok, and the movie theme is quite tense from the beginning to the end. However, the actors/actresses are mediocre. The ending is also typical Chinese movie technique, i.e. Use crying and background music to stir up emotion of audience.

The plot twists and turns in this movie of the Communists vs the puppet regime in Manchukuo. Set in December 1934, the story revolves around a true event.

The sets are lovingly and authentically created to reproduce the romance of the period. Attention to detail is evident even to ensuring the cinema calendar is correct. I had to watch and rewatch the movie so many times to link the clues and details.

Zhang's masterly cinematography would have certainly won him the Best Director Oscar had Jane Campion's Power of the Dog not been just as lush and powerful.

Excellent, really Excellent movie. This will be a hard act to follow.

Before this, I always thought "The Message" was the best one of this type. But Cliff Walkers impressed me with its story-telling.

Back in 1940s, four of the specially-trained spies were sent to commit a mission--To protect an informant and send him out so he can tell the truth about the government to the world. However, there are moles among the four. So it's harsh for the real agents to do the task.

Firstly, the acting is quite satisfying. Zhangyi played a senior spy in the movie, and his performance of being tortured was quite impressive.

This slick but convoluted spy picture follows a group of Chinese spies on a secret mission. There are twists and turns, smart good guys and smart bad guys, some stylish cinematography, and an odd mix of realistic world building and unrealistic James Bond-style action.

Unfortunately, I found it increasingly difficult to follow the story. This was probably mainly because I have difficulty with faces (prosopagnosia) and everyone in this movie looks alike and dresses alike. There are all these men in suits and fedoras who seem to be in their 30s. And all these women in their 20s with ponytails who also wear fedoras. I would just get so confused by who the good guys and bad guys were. The only character I could always recognize was the main bad-guy boss, because he was older than anyone else. And I could usually recognize the pretty teenaged-or-just-past girl. Outside of that, I got more and more lost as more and more lookalike characters arrived and died.

Normally I have other ways to know who's who in a movie, like personality or clothing or voice. But no one in this movie has a distinct personality and they all sound and dress the same. It's as bad as those American sci-fi films where every astronaut is a square-jawed alpha male with a crewcut.

In spite of this, I enjoyed the movie. It's far from Yimou Zhang's best, but it's entertaining. But if you have face blindness be warned that this is going to be a particularly tough movie to make sense of.