The Chef, The Actor, The Scoundrel 2013

Set in Beiping during the 1940s, amid the Second Sino-Japanese War, the film follows a grim project by the Imperial Japanese Army’s Unit 731. They release cholera as part of experiments on biological weapons, a plan that spirals out of control as the virus threatens their own troops. With the city sealed off from the outside world, two scientists are secretly summoned to manage the outbreak, while the virus spreads beyond Beiping and the residents inside grow hungry and desperate.

A [Huang Bo] plays the Scoundrel who encounters the two scientists inside Beiping, unaware of who they truly are, and attempts to rob them. The scientists are taken to a Japanese restaurant owned by a Chinese [Liu Ye], who portrays the Chef, where an opera actor also lives — [Zhang Hanyu] as The Actor. The trio is unable to decide what to do: the Chef wishes to release the captives to avoid trouble, the Scoundrel lies that he belongs to the Chinese Eighth Route Army, and the Actor contemplates killing both the scientists and the Scoundrel to prevent offending either side.

Everything shifts when the chef’s wife, [Liang Jing], rummages through the scientists’ belongings and finds a canister of cholera, realizing that the visitors are sent by Unit 731 to manage the virus. Faced with this discovery, the three men agree to set aside their differences and cooperate, aiming to profit from selling the canister. The Scoundrel and the Actor employ various interrogation methods to extract more information, while the Chef, acting as translator, secretly supports the scientists.