Cheng Er
Award-Winning Filmmaker
Best Director
Director, Hidden Blade
Jury Citation
Hidden Blade is a more mature exploration of director Cheng Er's aesthetic style, with a distinctive personal voice in both audiovisual language and authorial expression. The film's nonlinear narrative leaves a lasting aftertaste. It pursues refined beauty in camerawork, direction of performances, staging, colour and texture, showing the director's aesthetic accomplishment and a high level of control.
Hidden Blade: Synopsis
In the 1940s, Shanghai is in its "Orphan Island" period. Rival forces are intricately entangled; their members go by surname only, and from different positions they shape the course of history. The No. 76 secret service, based in the foreign concession, is a sinister agency that takes orders from the Wang Jingwei puppet government and serves Japanese imperialism. Mr. He (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), director of No. 76, is a smooth talker who keeps up an appearance of calm as he moves between Watanabe (Hiroyuki Mori), head of the Japanese special service, and the opportunist Minister Tang (Da Peng), yet his smile seems to hide something deeper. Agents Mr. Wang (Wang Chuanjun) and Mr. Ye (Wang Yibo) are friends who serve political power, until a few Japanese corpses turn their fates. Unable to bear the pressure of revolution and the threat of death, Mr. Zhang (Huang Lei), a former member of the underground Party, suddenly defects, and his betrayal brings the intrigue to a head.