Hidden Blade (2023) on Netflix

Plot summary

Set in Shanghai under Japanese occupation, the story follows Director He, who has risen to head the city's Political Security Department, a counterespionage division that Officer Watanabe oversees. He carries out assassinations, interrogations and torture to keep the trust of the Wang Jingwei regime, but he and his wife, Ms. Chen, secretly answer to the Chinese Communist Party and pass information to its underground network. Ms. Chen works with the party's secretary, Mr. Zhang, and messages reach her husband in pastries from a local bakery. Officer Watanabe wants to advance himself politically through the puppet government and is suspicious of the men around him, among them the young officer Mr. Ye.