
In the Chinese movie “Decoded”, we are taken on a Journey narrating the story of a mathematician who has been tasked with breaking secret codes for the military. Set in World War 2, this movie surely has a lot of elements of espionage. However, apart from this, there are distinct trademarks that set it apart from other films of its genre. First of all, it portrays Liu Haoran in a completely different light, as he takes on the role of a socially inept and tedious Jinzhen. This character is a far cry from Liu’s romantic roles which can throw off some viewers. Liu Haoran also took up the director’s mantle for this film, a complete antonym to his last project “Detective Chinatown” which was heavily based on humor and comedy with no substance. Moving back to “Decoded”, this has Liu’s debut in the direction seat and the genre of this movie has never touched him. All in all the movie has elements of a spy film however it is more focused on portraying love pairings in a World War setting rather than humor, which makes it stand out from the crowd.
Well, Liu nga vizuri did a good job as a wallflower but he does portray it a little frustratingly, especially if we talk about his role in Detective Chinatown. Considering he was part of a winning dynamic duo, Slacks Hair showed more promise in the movie films but that was only because he wasn’t trying to play a big role by donning wigs that look silly since his character was getting bald as he aged. Liu plays the role of Jinzhen which reminded me of Crowe’s portrayal of John Nash, a mathematician suffering from schizophrenia in Shakespeare’s A Beautiful Mind. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate certain associations about Jinzhen from Jinzhen if you got engrossed in playing the role of unlocking Black Cipher, which was designed with an intention to thwart Jinzhen. Liu seems to pass off convincingly in a number of places where he features as one of the leads and displays a range of characteristics of Jinzhen and never speaks for them, always looking down to prevent any chance of eye contact, as though Jinzhen is in trouble.
Nonetheless, he is usually outshone by Cusack thanks to his twitchy and over-the-top approach to the character and his ‘I’m too lazy to talk fast’ slurred speech, which makes most of his lines disappear alongside some silly dream sequences that are supposed to portray a more muted Liu who is meant to wow the audience and the consumer with a grand and powerful surprise.
Jinjshen viewed the questions as something that could be easily solved and, as a result, devoted himself to defeating those who clashed with him using their PhD-level intelligence. Hence, he goes to bed envisioning decanting of some of the world’s most enigmatic treasures. In all honesty, it is the closest treasure that can be imagined for him and to unleash mysteries, Jin makes it a point to not only pee off to the Unleashed but also the triggered. One of Jin’s dreams, for instance, Deliberation conflicts yet the graphics are engaging to watch which is the stage of the dream. The drama gets more and more engaging with time Jin Chen’s dreams have been the focal point. Therefore, Jin Chen is James Arthur and then he becomes an actor everything begins when one brilliant engineer wins battles with many other brilliant men but struggles with a brilliant master. Albeit it is worth it, as it makes sense and gets most places along the way, and explains all that happened between putting together the Black Cipher puzzle.
Somewhere at the range of 110 – 115 minutes or so types up, receives and baffling yet center-type something. During these long shots, Jinjshen stands idly and watches actors and actresses enter and leave the stage in a set. Daniel Wu plays the character of Xiaolili a family friend who lives at his aunt’s home, who is a university teacher.
Jinjshen also engages the attention of Professor Liesiwitz (Cusack) of animated activity who specializes in computer mathematics and purports to have a septentrional view of the Kuomintang censorship. Liesiwitz is something else in a sense, as he irks everyone alternatively in his requisitions except the only one who yells out loud war. As predicted, he would be at the National Security Agency of America in no time. In any case, in this one, he is trying to do the work of making ciphers black that are more and more complex.
Like many others, Jinzhen’s also got to hack for a global government which is fine with him because there are times when he recalls those glorious civics classes Xiaolili used to conduct to liven him up while sitting through the painstakingly dull chess games against Liesiwicz and the not so stimulating talk with him. Jinzhen is acquired by Director Zheng( Chen Daoming), a Chinese enigmatic G-man whose persona is accentuated in the paraphrased narrative through the description of his embarrassment-inducing speech delivered with a limp. Then Jinen is incarcerated in a classified Government setup where he pretends to woo a girl called Xiaomei (Krystal Ren) whom he proposes to in homemade ciphers and sleeps after cheap tease to her(‘Layer by layer, the truth is unveiled’).
It is worth noting that the ‘Decoded’ does not have any s*x scenes. But there is a very cheap and Extended out-of-place dream sequence which resembles a bad screensaver. For instance, Jinzhen imagines being inside the imposing ENIAC, a supercomputer that insults him in Chinese by shouting, “You will never understand us.” Sometimes, Jinzhen dreams of the Beatles since for some reason during their song, ‘I am the Walrus’, which contains the answers to the Black Cipher, the band makes an appearance in its music video. Watching Jinzhen, who looks like he’s trying to flee from four abominable portrayals of Beatles telling him “I am the egg guy. We are the egg guys. I am the manatee” while drenched in sweat is hardly as humorous.
Jin serves Liu quite poorly in terms of capturing looks and results. His character is limited to a series of actions and mumbles all aimed at mastering the next artifact that Jinzhen might need for any problem that may occur later.
Once again, the developers put in a lot of effort to compensate for the shortcomings of their unattractive main character, lacking any appeal, but the combined strengths of Lloyd Dobler and the Fab Four are not at all satisfying to me.
For more movies like Decoded (2024) visit on 123movies