Costumed design of spy movie "The Message"

Watch Video

Play Video

"The Message" is an upcoming World War Two espionage thriller. The film's official website was launched recently, and viewers got a sneak peak for the much-anticipated movie through its trailer. Its all-star cast is the key draw, but the costume design is also getting a lot of attention.

The movie gathers some of the country's A-list movie stars, including Zhou Xun, Li Bingbing, Zhang Hanyu, and Alec Su.

The story was set in 1942 in Nanjing. Following a series of assassination attempts on officials of the Japanese-controlled puppet government, the Japanese spy chief gathers a group of suspects in a mansion home for questioning. A tense game of cat and mouse ensues as the Chinese code-breaker attempts to send out a crucial message while protecting his own identity.

Timmy Yip worked as costume designer for the movie. As a renowned artist, he has multi-disciplinary works in costume design, visual art, and contemporary art. He is most well known for "Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon", for which he won an Oscar for Best Art Direction.

Costumed designer Timmy Yip said, "Costumes in that era are not as simple as they look. They contain a lot of properties. I conducted extensive research beforehand and found quite a lot of information in previous films. Finally, we decided to go with the cheong-sam for the lead actresses."