Television Review: Hotel Shanghai (Shanghai 1937, 1997)

There are places which, at certain specific points of time, can provide microcosmic summation of all the contradictions of the rest of the world. One such location serves as setting to Hotel Shanghai, 1997 German two-part television miniseries directed by Peter Patzak.

The miniseries is adapted from eponymous 1939 novel by Austrian writer Vicki Baum. The plot is set in Shanghai, city that represents commercial hub of China and much of East Asia. In 1937, when the plot takes place, parts of the city make International Settlement, where citizens of Western countries enjoy all kinds of extraterritorial privileges and live in unimaginable luxury compared with the native Chinese population. The tension between two groups is followed by the tensions among Chinese themselves, caused by civil war between Chiang Kai-Shek’s ruling Nationalist regime and Mao Zedong’s Communists. Furthermore, Shanghai also represents likely target for Japanese who appear prepared to conquer the city with most brutal methods imaginable. While the storm is brewing outside, one of the place where Westerners gather is Hotel Shanghai. Some of their guests came there to escape political persecution in their native countries, some because of shameful past and some, like the idealistic film making film maker Frank Taylor (played by James McCaffrey), want to tell the story suffering of Chinese people to Western audience. He meets Lady Helen Russell (played by Agnieszka Wagner), beautiful wife of alcoholic British aristocrat Bobby Russell (played by Nicholas Clay), and begins romantic relationship with her.

Vicki Baum became famous due to her so-called “hotel novels” and even had some of them adapted by Classic Hollywood, most notably 1932 iconic drama Grand Hotel. This mini-series is, however, unlikely to be remembered among such classics. Although the setting of the exotic foreign city at the eve of devastating war looks quite interesting and although the miniseries has diverse and interesting cast (with Polish actress Agnieszka Wagner doing very good job, just like British veterans Clay and Nigel Davenport in the role of butler), there is something missing. Despite format that seems more fitting for such ambitious story, this miniseries leaves a little bit too much holes in the plots, with certain characters not being developed enough. Reasons for that can be found in budget that is too low and the music by Christian Bruhn sounds too cheap for the story of such epic scope. Shoddiness of the production can be noticed even by some details like the character of Helen, who is supposed to be Russian , entertain exiled White Russian soldiers with “Russian” songs that sound very much like Balkan folk music. Although watchable, Hotel Shanghai clearly shows that the authors of the miniseries had ambitions way above their talents.

RATING: 4/10 (+)

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