Reviews
CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

August 27, 2024
6.0
There are quite a few similarities with "The Man Who Knew Infinity" (2015) in this film about the prodigious mathematical genius of Rong Jinzhen. By pure fluke, his problem-solving skills are spotted by teacher (Daniel Wu) who adopts the orphaned, rather subdued, boy into his close-knit family and provides him the opportunity to thrive. Over the next couple of hours we watch him (Haoran Liu) develop into an academic then into a man crucial to the efforts of his embryonic country as it struggles to recover from years of internal strife and to compete with the more established regional powers like the UK and the USA. It's to that latter nation that his Polish-born mentor "Liseiwicz" (John Cusack) escapes when the Kuomintang government in China falls and the communists take over - and these two men, on opposite sides of the world, soon become the epitome of intellectual rivals with the erstwhile pupil now working for the Chinese equivalent of Bletchley Park trying to keep pace with the incredibly complex "purple" and "black" ciphers being developed by the American National Security Agency. What's clear is the two men are being manipulated but their respective states and that is having - as Lieseiwicz predicted early on - quite a profound effect on their respective mental health and on Jinzhen's marriage to Ye Xiaoning. I quite liked the innovative way in which director Sicheng Chen tried to tell this tory. His use of the bizarre and the surreal amidst the more standard photography serves to give us an insight into just how un-lateral the thinking of these two men was when developing and cracking these codes with billions of potential permutations. The use of chess as a theme testing intellectual rigour works quite well too as does the sense that these two men and being used to play a game by their superiors that always looks likely to end in stalemate. Cusack does fine here, though maybe he over-does the maniacal aspects of his thought processes a little, but it's Haoran Liu who delivers more engagingly as the geeky, socially inept, scientist whose brain becomes like a train running out of control. This does have a slight element of jingoism to the narrative, the People's Republic being the bastion of all freedoms fighting the Imperialist West, but that's really only a sideline as the story of one man's impressive skills with cerebral gymnastics unfolds. It is too long: it does plod at times, but when it hits it's stride, it's interesting and attempts to show us a little of the character of these two men against a backdrop of a good looking production. A story of two addicts, really.

Recommendation Movies

6.2
Drama
View
6.2
Yolo
Yolo2024
6.6
Science Fiction
View
6.6
Evacuate from the 21st Century
Evacuate from the 21st Century2024
6.9
Drama
View
6.9
Land of Happiness
Land of Happiness2024
6.3
Action
View
6.3
The Purge: Election Year
The Purge: Election Year2016
8.1
Crime
View
8.1
Joker
Joker2019
7
Comedy
View
7
Don't Look Up
Don't Look Up2021
7.4
Horror
View
7.4
A Quiet Place
A Quiet Place2018
7.5
Action
View
7.5
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga2024
7.6
Animation
View
7.6
Inside Out 2
Inside Out 22024
6.7
Drama
View
6.7
Evil Does Not Exist
Evil Does Not Exist2023
6
Horror
View
6
Candyman
Candyman2021
8.3
Drama
View
8.3
Whiplash
Whiplash2014
8.2
Family
View
8.2
Coco
Coco2017
8.1
Drama
View
8.1
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Portrait of a Lady on Fire2019
7.6
Action
View
7.6
Mad Max: Fury Road
Mad Max: Fury Road2015
8.1
Drama
View
8.1
Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer2023
7.1
Comedy
View
7.1
The Nice Guys
The Nice Guys2016
7.1
Science Fiction
View
7.1
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes2024
8.2
Drama
View
8.2
Green Book
Green Book2018
7.6
Comedy
View
7.6
Another Round
Another Round2020
© 2024 MoovieTime. All rights reserved.Made with Nuxt