Acclaimed Raise the Red Lantern director Zhang Yimou returns with a new film about Chinese secret agents, beset on all sides by enemies and hindered by a traitor within their organization. However, this isn't simply Zhang's attempt at a spy thriller. Beneath its many tropes and elegant cinematography, Cliff Walkers is a troubling story about revolutionaries, victimhood and the glorification of a regime.

Cliff Walkers follows agents Zhang, Yu, Chuliang and Lan, Communist spies on a secret mission, code-named Utrennya. After parachuting into the woodlands, they must make their way to Harbin to uncover the truth about their mission and fight anti-Communists in the process.

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The historical spy film opens with a brief description of Japan's invasion of the region once known as Manchuria during World War II, before readying audiences for the story of this "tortured land." Bear in mind that, during the 1930s, Japan's military forces did indeed commit atrocities in the northeast region of China, and screenwriter Quan Yongxian's story uses those actual events well, more or less treating them with some deserved weight. The events frame the story about secret agents as a tale about the heroic Communist agents, trained in the U.S.S.R., fighting for their lives against poorly defined enemies of their ideology.

Therein lies the terrible problem at the heart of the film. It's not interested in telling a complete story about people or history. If it were, it would have done more than shoehorn in a thinly written subplot involving Zhang and Yu's children that it returns to every once in a while, or it would have shed light on even a few of the mission's consequences.

Zhang's film fails in those aspects. It's far more interested in telling a romanticized story about the early struggle of the Chinese Communist Party against the anti-Communists that tried, and failed, to stop its growth. As it plainly states, Cliff Walkers is dedicated to "the heroes of the Revolution." That revolution being China's Communist Revolution of the 1940s and '50s. There's propagandist dialogue throughout, shining a sympathetic light on The Communist Manifesto, without ever doing viewers the courtesy of diving deeper than having its protagonists utter famous Marxist quotes in reverence and showing opponents of that ideology dying gruesome, violent deaths.

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Putting political messages aside for a moment, the film simply cannot stand on its own as a spy thriller. Zhang, a known Chinese auteur, attempts to create a historical work that pays homage to classic Western spy thrillers. As such, it's chock-full of every film noir trope, including shifty eyes, shady characters in trench coats, cigarette smokers, more than a few dramatic double-crosses, an overly complicated plot and clumsily inserted flashbacks. By the second act, it loses its charm and just becomes distracting. More than that, it can be frustrating to watch. The sudden cuts make keeping track of time difficult for the audience. Characters seem to travel from one place to another in no time at all, in completely different situations without much context provided.

As with any cinematic work, Cliff Walkers has admirable qualities. The actors perform their roles well, especially Hewei You, who plays Section Chief Zhou as both the hardened government operative and the compassionate soldier fighting for his people. It's difficult not to enjoy their work on screen. Not to mention Zhang Yimou's films are always shot beautifully. The csnow-laden forests of the Chinese countryside, the maze-like alleyways and streets of Harbin and the fight or chase sequences -- each with just a touch of wuxia-inspired action -- are wondrous a lot of the time. It's all enhanced by a soundtrack featuring memorable string performances.

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The central message and overall purpose of the film should come as no surprise. 2021 brings the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party, and to celebrate, it ordered all cinemas to regularly play propaganda films throughout the year. Cliff Walkers was clearly intended to fit in nicely and, in that regard, it is sure to succeed. When it comes to international audiences, however, its attempt at glorifying what many governments -- including that of the United States -- consider to be a genocidal regime, will be painfully clear.

But we've seen this before. Anyone who has been paying attention to Chinese cinema over the past decades will see in Cliff Walkers what critics saw in 2015's Wolf Warrior and its 2017 sequel. The franchise painted China as the victim of aggression from the rest of the world and went on to shape the Chinese government's approach to diplomacy. Zhang Yimou's latest project is a blatant attempt to recreate that. It reinforces that idea and asks audiences to celebrate or, at least, place their trust in the Chinese Communist Party -- heroes of a revolution that history tends to paint in a hideous but far more truthful light. It's a wonderfully shot, beautifully acted piece of horrifying propaganda.

Based on the script by Quan Yongxian, Cliff Walkers was directed by Zhang Yimou and stars Zhang Yi, Yu Hewei, Qin Hailu, Zhu Yawen and Liu Haocun. The film is set to open April 30 in theaters.

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