Decoded review: Liu Haoran, John Cusack And Daniel Wu play twisty mind games in Chinese WWII spy thriller

Decoded (PG13)
Starring Liu Haoran, John Cusack, Daniel Wu, Chen Daoming, Krystal Ren
Directed by Chen Sicheng
This Hollywood-style PRC espionage drama-thriller about a Chinese tortured-genius codebreaker, Rong Jinzhen (Detective Chinatown’s Liu Haoran), looks like A Beautiful Mind meets The Imitation Game. With Oppenheimer-level atomic bomb gravitas seen from a mainland angle.
“The atomic bomb of our own will be detonated soon,” goes the nationalistic East-vs-West call.
It’s also a subconscious deep dive, a la Inception, with trippy, enigmatic CGI dream sequences. Spiral staircases, mazes, Ferris wheels, giant chess board and teacup, loony train scene with gun-toting imperialistic Yanks.
They seep in and out as fictional geek-hero Rong descends into madness trying to break seemingly impregnable enemy cyphers as a mathematical savant-turned-servant of the state.
It’s a kick to see super-dedicated crypto comrades in drab proletarian uniforms use manual abacuses to counter two diabolically intricate cypher machines, codenamed Purple and Black, created by the Americans’ National Security Agency.
More bizarrely, there’s a running reference to The Beatles’ surreal-comical song, ‘I Am The Walrus’. A mountain-sized walrus sits on a beach of red-coloured sand. Plus, dig this — very obedient Maoist troops go nuts searching for a missing top-secret notebook about a nonsensical “half man and half walrus with a gun that shoots eggs”.
Communist China collides right into absurdist Western pop culture. Like Dali meeting Dalian. Lennon encountering Liaoning. Gosh, maybe even a parody disguised as a little red book here.
Imagine (no John Lennon song joke intended).
Director and co-scriptwriter Chen Sicheng, apparently a Lennon fan, is known for being a fun, flashy filmmaker with his goofy-frenetic Detective Chinatown series starring Liu. Here, the kid looks unrecognisable scribbling equations in a maniacal world of his own with dorky spectacles and balding hair.
In the turbulent 1940s of patriots, students, spies and assassins amid the formation of new China, Rong is a highly agitated, girl-shy and socially awkward computational-brainiac lost puppy who’s essentially adopted three times. By a privileged university professor, Lili (Daniel Wu), and his family living in a big capitalist house. An ang moh maths mentor-turned-ultimate-adversary, Liseiwisc (John Cusack in a trademark persuasive-dude role). Finally by a shadowy man, Director Zheng (Chen Daoming), who recruits him into Unit 701, an ultra-secretive hideaway that collects gifted codebreakers for the national cause.
Rong keeps flicking light switches to determine whether he’s in the real world or an illusionary sleep-induced one which allows him to break cyphers via dream interpretation. Basically, when he dreams it, he solves it with a heavy toll on his sanity.
On paper, viz the 2002 bestselling novel by Chinese author Mai Jia which this flick is based on, this tale is a page-turner.
But onscreen, director Chen slows down his young people’s pace for a respectful film that’s too ambitious, over-plotted and overlong at more than two-and-a-half hours covering espionage, patriotism, duty, sabotage, geopolitics, the Cultural Revolution, assassination, love, etc. And yep, those overdone wacky dreams.
With Chen cranking more wheels than the cyphers, Decoded plays like a popcorn Tom Clancy international-intrigue yarn — the US and Taiwan try to kill national security threat Rong using bomber planes — that’s penned while wearing a Mao cap.
Here, you’re intrigued by this pic’s various interactions. You don’t quite buy Rong and Liseiwicz’s tight bond. Liu looks uncomfortable spouting halting English while Cusack seems too modern as though he’s still in High Fidelity-engaging Liu over a John Lennon album instead of a cypher war.
But Liu’s scenes with Chen Daoming’s senior agent Zheng and the young female admirers in Rong’s life — Krystal Ren as Xiaomei, a cute cadre in Unit 701, and Yusi Chen as Biyu, dutiful daughter of university professor Lili with a secret crush on him — are Decoded’s best moments nailing the human quality of Chinese movies.
You’d wish to see more, along with the brief aspirations of private freedom here when you detect perhaps a slight, naughty breach of the rah rah. Rong yearns to escape over the communist camp’s high wall. Xiaomei decadently unbuttons her sweater on the dormitory bed.
Director Chen, John Lennon fan, should have given pieces like these more of a chance. (3/5 stars) in cinemas now
Photo: mm2 Entertainment