'Shanghai Calling,' And The Answer Is, 'Why Not?'
The movie doesn't so much dissolve stereotypes as toy with them until they're defanged. Sam assumes that his gorgeous, sloe-eyed assistant (played by Zhu Zhu, a polymath who also models and hosts MTV China) is hopelessly in love with his awesome self. A mysterious private-eye-or-whatever named Awesome Wang (Geng Le) shows up to thicken the plot, along with the usual posse of wacky American expats, among them the backslapping, self-appointed mayor of Shanghai's American Quarter (Bill Paxton) and an American inventor (Alan Ruck) who seems a tad too eager to show off his mastery of Chinese calligraphy.
And let's not forget the statutory mettlesome blonde (however fetchingly played by Scrubs' Eliza Coupe) with "love interest" written all over her.
Shanghai Calling doesn't aspire to fresh insight, let alone profundity. But it's nice to see the American migration narrative get out of the house for some fresh air. And if this irresistibly high-spirited confection performs well worldwide, I have a feeling we'll be seeing it cloned all over the global movie map. As copycat pop trendsetting goes, we could do worse.