During World War II era, a young woman, Wang Jiazhi, gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with a powerful political figure, Mr. Yee.

Frustrated in his attempts to assassinate Yee, who is an important official in Japanese-ruled Shanghai, Old Wu, who has lost his wife and two sons as well as two women who had attempted to seduce Yee, now recruits Kuang, Mai Tai Tai, and their troupe of drama students from Hong Kong University in yet another attempt to do away with Yee. Mai Tai Tai is chosen to befriend Yee, which she does by posing as the wife of Mak, befriending Yee's wife and her female friends, and then eventually befriending Yee himself. Even though both get together, they do end up going separate ways, only to meet again four years later. This time Mai is all set to entrap Yee at Chandni Chowk Jewellers which is owned by an East Indian man named Khalid Saiduddin. The question does remain: Will she and her troupe succeed?—rAjOo ([email protected])

Naive Wong Chia Chi is a college student in 1938 Hong Kong, to where many mainland Chinese have escaped from the bloodshed of the Sino-Japanese War. Her widowed father, abandoning her in China, escapes himself to England with her younger brother. On campus, she innocently gets involved with the politically active theater troupe led by Kuang Yu Min. Their plays protest the war, with Yu Min's stance particularly against any Chinese who collaborates with the Japanese. The productions' primary goal is to raise money for the resistance. Many Chinese do collaborate with the Japanese in part to maintain their upper class lifestyle. No longer solely content to hear the chants of "China will not fall" from their anti-Japanese audiences, Yu Min wants to venture into more direct activism by killing one of those collaborating with the Japanese, namely a Shanghai bigwig hiding out in Hong Kong named Mr. Yee to who they can get access through an old friend of Yu Min's. Despite all of them realizing that they know nothing about killing or espionage, they all agree. The expensive plot, funded by wealthy troupe member Liang Jun Sheng, involves Chia Chi acting as Mrs. Mak, the wife of a wealthy businessman, played by her fellow actor, Auyang Ling Wen. Although not originally the plan, Chia Chi becomes the center of the plot as she is the one who captures the attention of both Mr. and Mrs. Yee. The final act becomes more and more difficult to execute due to Mr. Yee's extremely cautious nature and despite his overwhelming evident lust for Mrs. Mak. The plot, which eventually involves those in the resistance who may have more expertise in espionage and killing, which moves to Shanghai and which covers the span of four years, changes Chia Chi fundamentally as a person, especially due to her developing love/hate relationship with Mr. Yee.—Huggo

Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi. With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min. Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe's new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee. Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yees' trust by befriending his wife and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee. Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong having emigrated from Hong Kong goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit...—Focus Features

During the World War II, in the Japanese-occupied Shanghai a students drama troupe plan to kill a Japanese-supported official, Mr. Yee. For the job, the shy girl but the leading lady of the group, who has the power to convulse the audience, Wong Chia Chi, is chosen. But she is willing for the leader of the troupe Kuang Yu Min. She has to be disguised as Mrs. Mak and has to earn the trust of Mrs. Yee. Then what she had to do is to get into the heart of Mr. Yee.—Jayanthan