Ken Watanabe will join John Cusack and Gong Li in the period drama "Shanghai" for The Weinstein Company reports Variety.

The drama, set four months prior to December 7th, 1941, follows an American who returns to a corrupt, Japan-occupied Shanghai to discover his friend has been killed.

While trying to solve the murder, he falls in love and discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding.

Mikael Hafstrom ("1408") directs from a script by Hossein Amini. Shooting begins next month on location in China.