Kohata Ryuichi

World War II: a cholera epidemic ravages the streets of Beijing. A crack team of Chinese intelligence agents kidnaps a Japanese general and biochemist who may hold the antidote. When trickery and torture fail, the covert squad smuggles their victims into a restaurant and launches the oddest of interrogations – staging a Chinese Opera and posing as fellow guests, designed to entice, confuse, and ultimately trick their captives into revealing the truth before time runs out.

While China is traumatized by military cliques during the Warlord Era in the 1920s, Shanghai is the cynosure of all eyes. People see it as both Hell’s Kitchen and Heaven’s Gate. One of the city’s most memorable heroes has to be Chen Zhen, who single-handedly avenges his mentor’s death by killing all the Japanese at a dojo in Hongkou, only to be showered with bullets while making his legendary flying kick. He vanished from the public eye ever since he was taken for dead though his body was never found.

Seven years later, a wealthy entrepreneur called Koo returns from abroad and makes a grand