WHITE DEVIL OF SHANGHAI
Romantic war adventure set against the backdrop of World War II China. Two mismatched fugitives of war, a jaded American newsman and a strong-willed Jewish refugee girl, escape Japanese-occupied Shanghai to reach Free China. They evolve into unlikely heroes among the Chinese, one as a mercenary destroying lives, the other as a Red Cross miracle worker saving lives. Their stormy relationship ultimately brings them together to save Shanghai's Jewish refugees from Nazi extermination.
December 7, 1941. A Jewish refugee family arrives in Shanghai, AVRAM and RUTH COHN traumatized by their flight from Nazi Germany. Their young rebel daughter SARA, a Berlin medical student, is fascinated by this exotic new world. DR. ABE COHN, their China-born cousin and their only hope to reach America, takes them to his hotel. He regrets there are no visas. Shanghai is their last stop.
SEAN McCLURE, a quick-tempered Irish-American reporter, loses his job when his foreign news office is bombed. He has to find a way back home. In a cabaret club, he promises his Chinese girlfriend BUTTERFLY LI to take her to America. Dr. Cohn seeks Sean’s help to buy forged passports for Avram’s family, on the eve of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. It’s time to get out fast.
Japanese troops, under fanatical COLONEL INUZUKA, rout out all Jews from Abe’s hotel, the Cohn family cattle-trucked to the Hongkew ghetto. Searching for them at the hotel, Dr. Cohn discovers the Nazi plan for a Jewish death camp.
Trying to escape the city, Sean and Butterfly are aided by Communist revolutionary YEN YAT-SEN, until a Japanese soldier wounds Sean. Dr. Cohn smuggles them into a Jewish refugee house where Sara nurses Sean back to health. Dr. Cohn urges Avram to let Sara escape with Sean, her only chance to survive and reach America.
Meanwhile, Nazi COLONEL MEISINGER, the “Butcher of Warsaw,” arrives in Shanghai to oversee the building of an island concentration camp outside the city.
Sean, Sara, Butterfly Li and Yen embark on a perilous journey to reach Chungking. After an enemy encounter, Butterfly Li is killed and Yen joins the Red Army. Sean and Sara fend for themselves and fall in love. They never reach Chungking, but instead evolve into unlikely heroes among the Chinese: Sean as the “White Foreign Devil”, a mercenary-army leader killing and looting Japanese, Sara as the “White Miracle Worker”, a traveling nurse saving Chinese lives, each with conflicting agendas that undermine their love and constantly tear them apart.
Their stormy relationship finally brings them together to go back and save Sara’s parents and Shanghai's Jewish refugees from impending extermination. Moved and shamed by Sara’s truer heroism, Sean plots to destroy the island concentration camp, leading to a cataclysmic climax and a startling twist of events.
This romantic war adventure tells an intimate story of passion, intrigue and misguided heroism set against the epic backdrop of World War II China.
Clive Owen
Michael Fassbender
Bridge Over River Kwai
Scriptapalooza Features/Shorts (Quarterfinalist) [2015]
AWS (Finalist) [2011]
Show More
ScriptLinks
Post Your Script Here!Cold Pepper
A law-abiding, church-going court stenographer becomes a one-woman vigilante 'offing' violent domestic abusers (and other despicable souls) after their third offense.
AT THE MERCY OF FAITH
A former preacher, haunted by the tragic rape/murder of his twin sister, spirals into darkness as supernatural forces, both angelic and demonic, wage war for his soul.
Fidelity Clause
A former model-turned-entrepreneur once had the world at her fingertips, now she has to grasp a world of torment; her cheating psychiatrist husband blurs the line between Psychotherapist and Psycho, when he resorts to mind games and unscrupulous schemes, intent on framing her of adultery and escaping his vows free & clear.
Xanadu Shores III Rescuing Atlas
The Xanadu Team, their credibility restored after rescuing Natalia and the painting, are recruited to recover the plans to save the world from a rogue aerospace engineer.
Xanadu Shores (20pgs) - "The Pilot" - 9.16.25
Logline: Four friends unknowingly become entrapped after their employer's gold heist escalates to kidnapping.
Xanadu Shores: 10 Minute PoC for The TV Pilot
Four friends unknowingly become entrapped after their employer's gold heist escalates to kidnapping.
Alien Olympics
A brilliant alien teenager, gifted with a high IQ and extraordinary speed, has always excelled academically on her home planet.
She Curses Like a Sailor
A thought-provoking view of women and cursing is entertained at this art opening in New York.
Lady Diogenes of the Shadow
Three retired ladies candidly discuss their baffling neighbor over morning coffee.
Perfect Beau
A Brainiac Plain Jane clones her ideal boyfriend out of her girlfriends' boyfriends' DNA for her college senior class project.
