Hidden Blade is a 2023 Chinese drama thriller film directed by Er Cheng and starring Tony Leung and Wang Yibo.

The film takes place during the War of Resistance, detailing the espionage that resulted in the end of Japanese occupation and the rise of China's Communist Party.

Scenes of the movie cut between flashbacks and flashforwards and center around three characters during Japan's occupation of China: Director He (Leung), Mr. Ye (Yibo), and Officer Watanabe (Mori).

A flashback shows a young man who goes by He (Tony Leung) witnessing the final bombing of Guangzhou in 1938 in a makeshift mine alongside other survivors.

Shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the man rose through the ranks to become the director of Shanghai's Political Security Department, a counterespionage division overseen by Officer Watanabe.

Despite showing loyalty to the Wang Jingwei regime, Director He secretly works for the Chinese Communist Party alongside his wife Ms. Chen (Zhou Xun).

As a supposedly loyal worker, Director He diligently performs his tasks of assassinating, interrogating, and torturing as a means of gaining Officer Watanabe's trust.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is announced and the Wang Jingwei regime declares war on Great Britain and the United States, causing Shanghai to be completely occupied by the Japanese military.

Officer Watanabe rewards Mr. Ye by making him his new secretary and showing the latter a map of territories and intel that would help strengthen Japan's occupation of China via Manchuria.

Hidden Blade is produced by Polybona Films as the third installment in its "China Victory Trilogy", following Chinese Doctors (2021) and The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021).

[7] In February 2022, the production team released a teaser trailer with two men conversing in Shanghainese,[8] spawning rumors that the entire film would be in the dialect.