British filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s earlier and more recent work deserves even greater recognition when compared to Chinese director Chen Sicheng’s ambitious but saccharine and mostly boring “Decoded,” an adaptation of Mai Jia’s 2002 novel of the same name. This cradle-to-grave portrait of fictional character Rong Jinzhen (Haoran Liu), a wonderful orphan turned valuable government employee in the 1940s, chronicles how his unique skills ultimately helped pave the way for China’s own nuclear weapons program.
While the scale of its task and its global implications immediately draw comparisons to Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Decoded must be seen as “China’s answer” to the recent Best Picture Oscar winner, with the title coming with the caveat that it is a toothless film when it comes to moral ambiguity. It is not an oppositional work of art meant to challenge the pursuit of such a buildup, but a state-supported endeavor in which patriotism is extolled throughout – literally, until the very last frame. The idealized concept of a sovereign country and the duty to defend it drives Jinzhen’s every move.
At a young age, Jinzhen learns the art of dream interpretation from his mysterious guardian. His genius combines this esoteric talent with an innate ability for complex mathematical thinking. Although he can decipher tricky equations like those in “A Beautiful Mind,” he believes the keys to solving ciphers lie in his dreams. Only by turning off a light switch can Jinzhen know whether what he is seeing is a conscious experience or not – a device reminiscent of the spinning top in Nolan’s “Inception.”
Haoran’s performance leans heavily on the archetype of a highly intelligent, awkward person who has difficulty socializing and expressing emotions – a “nerd” in the way Hollywood films often portray academically gifted people, with a face full of acne to boot. The actor fared far better in last year’s more subdued drama “The Breaking Ice” from Singaporean director Anthony Chen as a young professional battling mental illness.
Guidance from mentor Jan Liseiwicz (John Cusack), a Jewish professor teaching in China, maximizes the prodigy’s potential. The two eventually become rivals as their respective governments employ them in battle to thwart enemy plans. Cusack, competent but far from memorable here, is no stranger to Chinese cinema, having previously appeared in the historical epic “Dragon Blade.”
When Liseiwicz invents a “Purple Cypher” for the U.S. military, a device that is nearly impossible to crack, the geopolitical conflict intensifies while Jinzhen works tirelessly to solve it. Dense onscreen text attempts ineffectively to convey the historical context of the U.S.-backed operations Jinzhen thwarted in Taiwan and Hong Kong as mainland China tightened its grip on those semi-autonomous states.
“Decoded” is crammed with superficial characters (especially Jinzhen’s relatives: his wife and adoptive family) who forcefully inject emotion, overlong and technically flawless but lacking in cinematic personality. It’s pleasant to watch but hard to empathize with much. There’s a polished artificiality to the whole thing, from the impeccable sets that seem more like shop windows than places where people spend their lives, to a score that soars at the slightest provocation and is intent on moving the viewer. Everything seems designed to appease, never challenge, the powerful. There’s no doubt that ample resources were available for this production, but if Chen provided a director’s voice for “Decoded,” which he co-wrote for the screen with Christopher MacBride (“Flashback”), it’s a job for Jinzhen to figure out exactly what that was.
At first glance, the digital effects in the elaborate dream sequences—where we see Jinzhen in a glitzy amusement park or running away from walls that close in on him—are stunning. But soon one notices a problem with the composition, which noticeably superimposes the actor over the digital scenes. The two elements seem inorganically put together. Even if flawed, these colorful, larger-than-life passages offer a change of pace from the film’s chronological biopic format. As Jinzhen’s grip on reality fades, his dreams become increasingly bizarre. Perhaps the most unexpected and bizarre image in “Decoded” is when the fanged mammal referenced in the Beatles song “I Am the Walrus” appears in one of his visions, and which the protagonist believes may contain a message from friend and foe Liseiwicz.
Decoded feels as though it was conceived with the express desire to appeal to American sensibilities, but only so long as that doesn’t mean straying too far from a polished, uncritical portrayal of Chinese politics and war tactics. More a quasi-inspirational story than a thriller about a character conceived as a nearly flawless paragon of officially recognized virtue, it evokes as much suspense as it does tedious chore.
