February 21, 2026
by Carla Hay
Directed by Zhang Yimou
Mandarin with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in China, the action film “Scare Out” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An elite national security team has its operations turned upside down when a traitor is suspected to be on the team, and in internal investigation tests the trust of the team members.
Culture Audience: “Scare Out” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and stylist spy thrillers that have twists and turns.
“Scare Out” uses a lot of familiar plot developments in this thriller about government security agency experiencing an internal investigation to expose a traitor. The engaging acting performances outweigh the movie’s flaws. The first 20 minutes of “Scare Out” zip around at such a frenetic pace, it’s almost like getting cinematic whiplash. This movie gets better once it slows down a little and takes the time to delve into the story’s political intrigue and the personal dynamics of the main characters.
Directed by Zhang Yimou and written by Liang Chen, “Scare Out” takes place in an unnamed city in China. The movie was actually filmed in Shenzhen, China. There is some technology in the movie that could be considered science fiction, because the technology did not exist in 2026, when “Scare Out” was released. However, “Scare Out” is meant to depict a near-future world where this technology will probably exist sometime after 2026.
“Scare Out” begins with a suspenseful but somewhat jumbled chase scene, where the National Security team is tracking down a suspected spy who is doing an exchange of a valuable. The team has operatives doing a foot chase on the ground. Meanwhile, the chase is being monitored by other National Security team members in a control room with several video monitors.
National Security members dress all in black when they’re on the job. Their headquarters are located in a sleek, high-rise office building. “Scare Out” is a very stylish-looking, futuristic movie. Expect to see a lot of scenes with aqua blue lighting and shiny silver objects.
The suspect being chased is a middle-aged American named Nathan (played by Nathaniel Boyd), who has been seen getting a delivery on the street. Nathan has in his possession a small metal box that is believed to have classified information that could threaten the national security of China.
Several team members are on the ground in their efforts to apprehend Nathan. A senior-level member of the team is Huang Kai (played by Yilong Zhu), a married man in his late 30s. Kai works closely with Yan Di (played by Jackson Yee), a bachelor in his mid-20s. Kai and Di have a brotherly relationship and have a great deal of respect for each other. Another team member on the ground is a young man named Su Bin (played Du Yusen), whose personality is as generic as generic can be.
Inside the building is their colleague Chen Li (played by Lin Boyang), who is in charge of operating a drone that is tracking the suspect. The top supervisors in the building are Director Liu (played by Chen Minghao) and Deputy Director Wang (played by Zhang Yi), who know what’s going on with this manhunt. Video surveillance from cameras on the streets and the team’s body cams allow the personnel in the control room to see what’s going on.
A tragedy happens on the streets when a sniper named Pin Shan (played by Jiang Qilin), using a crossbow and arrows, hits a National Security team member named Little Li in the neck. Little Li dies. An arrow from the sniper also hits Kai in Kai’s back shoulder, as he jumped in front of Di to shield him from the arrow. Kai is wounded at treated at a local hospital and gets discharged within 24 hours. It’s not the first time that Kai has put himself in harm’s way for Di, who is grateful to have Kai looking out for Di.
After an intense chase, Nathan is apprehended. But an explosive attached his abdomen detonates right before he is arrested, leaving Nathan severely injured with mostly second-degree burns. In his hospital bed, Nathan is questioned by National Security. Nathan denies that he’s involved in espionage and insists he was just paid to pick up the box without knowing what was inside the box.
Meanwhile, back at National Security headquarters, Li is reprimanded because the drone she was operating chased the sniper Shan onto a tall building, where he fell to his death, taking his many secrets with him. The National Security team wanted to capture the sniper alive, so he could possibly tell information that the team needs. The National Security team bosses think that the sniper is part of a larger spy network that the team wants to take down.
Li was a close friend of deceased Little Li, so she is questioned about whether or not she deliberately used the drone to cause the sniper’s death. Li denies that she did anything wrong, but she comes under suspicion by her superiors as someone who could be undermining the team’s work. This suspicion becomes even more problematic when a new supervisor joins the team.
Soon after Kai gets out of the hospital and returns to work, Deputy Director Wang makes an announcement to the subordinate team members that they have a new supervisor. Her name is Zhao Hong (played by Song Jia), who is a no-nonsense task master. She expertise is in internal affairs investigations.
Shortly after joining the group, Hong has a private meeting with Kai and Di to let them know that there’s a mole traitor on the team. And because they Kai and Di have high level of security clearances, Kai and Di are on the suspect list. Kai and Di undergo interrogations by Hong and Director Liu, who ask them intrusive questions about their personal lives. Li also undergoes a similar interrogation, which leaves her in tears when she goes back to her desk.
Hong has given a name for this mission to find out and punish the mole: Operation Scare Out. The rest of the movie chronicles four days of this internal investigation that causes tensions on the team, which is still expected to continue the tasks assigned to them before the internal investigation began. Operation Scare Out begins to erode the trust that Kai and Di had in each other, as the investigation singles them out as the two most likely suspects.
Other characters who have crucial roles in this twist-filled story are Bai Fan (played by Yang Mi), Kai’s seductive mistress; Xiao Yu (played by Liu Shishi), Kai’s wife, whose pregnancy affects the way Kai thinks about his future; and a scientific researcher named Li Nan (played by Lei Jiayin), who is a witness to something that could get one of the traitor suspects fired. “Scare Out” has such a frenetic pace, some of the movie’s characters are rushed into the story with more information revealed about them later in the movie.
“Scare Out” doesn’t become overstuffed with supporting characters. What the story really comes down to is if Kai or Di is the traitor. And if so, how and why does that traitor get caught? Could there be more than one traitor? Could there be someone else who’s the traitor who isn’t Kai or Di? The movie answers all those questions. The action scenes are suspenseful, but some of the movie’s visual effects needed improvement.
“Scare Out” cannot be recommended to people who get easily confused by movies about espionage intrigue and the layers of identities that spies often have for themselves. Thanks to the dynamic performances of Yee as Di and Yilong as Kai, “Scare Out” is a riveting movie that is more than about finding a traitor spy. The friendship between Di and Kai is believable, which makes this investigation a very personal matter and the stakes higher. The end of “Scare Out” is an unsettling reminder that trusting someone is very tricky in espionage and can often be a fatal mistake.
CMC Pictures released “Scare Out” in select U.S. cinemas and in China on February 17, 2026.
