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Giving the traditional, star-driven period epic a gloss-coating of topicality, Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s “She’s Got No Name” is based on a notorious real-life murder case that unfolded against the turbulent backdrop of 1940s China. And although it’s probably most notable for providing Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi with a remarkably de-glammed central role, it is the setting, rather than the sincere but only tentatively feminist storyline, that will likely give this handsome, lengthy movie its international appeal. The re-creation of mid-century Shanghai remains impressive even as Chan’s evident admiration for his heroine’s survival instinct starts to become rote, locking Zhang into a screenplay that gives plenty of depth to her character’s anguish, but little breadth to grow.

Zhang plays Zhan-Zhou, a poor, illiterate working-class woman with a birthmark grazing her forehead and cheek, whom we meet as she scurries from her alley tenement and onto a trolley car,...

Whew, where to start. It’s a tough category to gauge with the wide range of junk on all fronts of cinema in general, but this is a subject I have had running through out my mind, since day one of writing for this site. Scrolling down the categories of which to label and stipulate what the written piece of information would fall under, I saw a tag of Worst Black Film. This stamp was burned into my mind for so long and started to run the rolodex of junk I had seen, and also some I needed to still witness, because let’s face it, Tyler Perry is still popping shit out, two a year.

But this is also a tough criteria to tackle as I tend to like crap and junk in general. The campy, sappy and overblown, overacted ridiculousness that flickers at us can be overall fun.