Still from Saturday Fiction — Saturday Fiction (2019) — Lou YePhotographed by Zeng Jian

Lou Ye

Saturday Fiction

Name: Saturday Fiction
Genre: Drama, Action, Action/Adventure
Released: 2019
Duration: 127 min

兰心大剧院

China / Chinese / 2019 / 2h 7m

Not streamingNot currently on the Criterion Channel.

Drama Action Action/Adventure

Letterboxd: 3.53/5·3.2K ratings·833 reviewson Letterboxd
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Synopsis

The latest from acclaimed director Lou Ye—one of contemporary Chinese cinema’s boldest auteurs—is a stylish, spellbinding thriller built around a tour-de-force performance from the great Gong Li. It’s 1941, and China has become a wartime intelligence battlefield. Actor Jean Yu (Gong) returns to Shanghai, ostensibly to appear in the play “Saturday Fiction,” directed by her former lover. But what is her true aim? To free her ex-husband? To gather intelligence for the Allied forces? To work for her adoptive father? Or to escape from war with her lover? As she embarks on her mission, with friends ever more difficult to distinguish from undercover agents, Jean Yu starts to question whether to reveal what she has learned about the imminent Pearl Harbor attack.