Bille August is definitely a better director of a more intimate genre, and he confirms it in this case as well. All "action" scenes stink of cheap production, tricks are more than transparent. Especially at the beginning it looks terrible, during the bombing of Tokyo, I wanted to give up right away. After about 20 minutes, the "CGI mess" disappears and it moves towards a sad story about the Japanese occupation of China. Where the local people suffer. The plot revolves around two strangers who found their way to each other despite the adversity of fate. The depiction of the Chinese village and its customs are among the better, but that's not enough.