At long last, the Lou Ye’s Venice 2019 premiere Saturday Fiction is arriving stateside. After some delays presumably caused by the pandemic, Strand Releasing will now bow the slow-burn spy thriller at IFC Center on April 22 and the first trailer has arrived.
Led by Gong Li and set in Japanese-occupied Shanghai on the cusp of World War II, the film follows acclaimed actress Jean Yu, who has returned to Shanghai from China after a long absence. Jean Yu is in rehearsals for a play to be directed by a former lover (Mark Chao), but she seems to have ulterior motives, functioning as a double agent and gathering intelligence for the Allies, including the fateful realization of Japan’s imminent attack on Pearl Harbor.
Mark Asch said in his TIFF 2019 review, “A filmmaker perhaps too prolific for his own good, Lou Ye takes his latest spin ‘round the festival circuit with Saturday Fiction, a movie stuffed to bursting with sumptuous movie-movie atmosphere, the swoony charge of ideas about art, love, and espionage, and good-enough storytelling solutions.”
Watch below.
Saturday Fiction opens on April 22 at IFC Center and will expand.