Set in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo in the early 1930s, the film follows Xiao Zheng Wang Naixun and three fellow Chinese Communist Party agents who parachute back into Harbin in Northeastern China. They undertake a covert operation code-named Utrenya (Russian: утреня) with a clear, high-stakes goal: to extract a former prisoner who could reveal the crimes of the Imperial Japanese Army to the international community, including unethical human experimentation and other horrors carried out by Unit 731. The mission is framed by a stark, urgent ethics—a resolve to shine a light on atrocities that would otherwise stay hidden, and a willingness to risk everything to bring those truths to a global audience.
Upon landing, the team splits into two groups to minimize the risk of capture and the pressure to betray their teammates or the mission itself. Their plan is precise but fragile, built on trust, secrecy, and the ever-present fear of discovery. Each segment carries a stark sign of their willingness to sacrifice themselves if it comes to that: pills tucked away in a matchbox bearing a Russian inscription, a备用 that they would swallow if they were forced to face interrogation or capture. This desperate precaution underscores the high stakes of their clandestine operation and the personal costs of resistance under occupation.
As the four agents thread through Harbin’s shadows, the story tightens around the brutal reality of covert warfare: the haunting possibility that their local contacts are not reliable allies but covert opposition, masquerading as compatriots. The team manages to slip away from a carefully staged trap, only to learn a harsher truth—that a local co-conspirator, who had witnessed the executions and the tortures inflicted on others, betrayed them after being exposed to the interrogations and the drug-assisted pressure designed to extract information.
The film remains steady in its focus on cunning, loyalty, and the moral peril of espionage. It portrays how fear, deception, and the lure of survival can fracture even the closest bonds, while the pursuit of truth about crimes committed in the shadows of war drives the characters forward. Throughout this tense journey, the audience is invited to confront difficult questions about accountability, the cost of resistance, and the ethical boundaries of exposing atrocities to the broader world, all set against the stark backdrop of Harbin’s icy streets and the murky corridors of power that can shield or crush those who seek the light.
