Keep Real
特立独行
China, 2026, colour, 2.35:1, 121 mins.
Director: Xing Wenxiong 邢文雄.
Rating: 8/10.
Scathing black comedy about a superhero brought low by political corruption and bureaucratic double-talk has a strong script and characterful cast.
STORY
Laiyin county 莱茵县 [Lying Town], somewhere in China, the present day. Thirty years ago mysterious solar storms invested thousands of people with incredible superpowers; but those same storms also exposed the Solar System to attack by aliens. A young hero emerged in Laiyin county called Wang Changhai (Bai Jingting) and after 20 years of war the aliens were beaten back. Wang Changhai is returning home for the first time in 20 years, and Xia Mu (Wei Xiang), chairman of the Superhero Association of Laiyin County, is preparing a welcome dinner for him that involves many other local superheroes. When Wang Changhai arrives, he is immediately challenged by Hu Zuochang (Yu Yang), the cocky brother-in-law of corrupt county head Wang Xinling (Zhang Guoqiang). Hu Zuochang falsely claims to have superpowers as well, and because of his family connection no one except Wang Changhai dares to stand up to him. Wang Changhai announces he has returned home to set up a Superhero Combat Squad, in case the aliens return, and he invites volunteers from the assembled superheroes to audition the next day. Meanwhile, he goes home to his mother (Zhao Haiyan), who constantly puts him in his place. Next day a drunk Hu Zuochang disrupts the auditions and gives Wang Changhai a dinner invitation from Wang Xinling. Xia Mu advises Wang Changhai to accept it, as the Superhero Association depends on the county head’s support. Because of Wang Changhai’s directness and lack of guile, the dinner initially goes badly, despite Xia Mu secretly sending him advice through the ether, “decoding” what the two-faced Wang Xinling really means. But then Wang Xinling changes tack and pretends to respect Wang Changhai’s honesty. He agrees to support the idea of a Superhero Combat Squad, as long as Wang Changhai fills in the necessary paperwork to legally set up the squad. Xia Mu says it’s just a delaying tactic but Wang Changhai goes along with it, despite encountering day after day of soul-destroying bureaucracy. Finally, his mother, who knows how the town operates, finds out that Wang Xinling is secretly blocking all the paperwork. Wang Changhai confronts Wang Xinling, who pretends to be insulted by the accusations and then has him detained for several days for storming into the county offices. When he’s released, Wang Changhai cuts his hair and abandons his superhero costume, trying to fit in with the ways of normal humans. He befriends Wang Xinling, and even gets drunk at a dinner with Zhao Jinfeng (Su Xiaoding), the corrupt young chairman of coal-mining company Jinfeng Group, which accounts for 30% of local GDP but is ruining the environment and weakening the county’s terrain with reckless underground excavation. Zhao Jinfeng has Wang Xinling in his pocket, and Wang Changhai starts going along with the whole corrupt set-up, to Xia Mu’s dismay. But then Wang Xinling’s loyal secretary, Jin (Huang Cailun), decides one day that he can’t take any more of his boss’ two-faced behaviour.
REVIEW
After helping to save the planet, a superhero returns home and tries to fit into normal human life in Keep Real 特立独行, a scathing black comedy on political corruption and meaningless bureaucratic double-talk that’s streets ahead of the first movie by writer-director Xing Wenxiong 邢文雄, the lame comedy Too Cool to Kill 这个杀手不太冷静 (2022). Model-turned-actor/singer Bai Jingting 白敬亭, now in his early 30s and mostly known from TV, is well cast as the superhero who tries to adjust his black-and-white view of the world to the harsh realities of real life, and is supported by a strong script and an experienced lineup of character characters, including comedian Wei Xiang 魏翔 and veteran actor Zhang Guoqiang 张国强. Partly funded by Bai’s own company, Leben Culture, it received good reviews but only polite-ish box office, RMB139 million.
Harbin-born Xing, 39, graduated from Shanghai Theatre Academy in 2011 and initially worked in theatre, finally moving from Harbin to Beijing in 2016 to develop a career as a screenwriter. Too Cool to Kill was an adaptation for the Beijing comedy troupe Ma Hua FunAge 开心麻花 of the 2008 Japanese comedy The Magic Hour ザ・マジックアワー by writer-director Mitani Koki 三谷幸喜, in which an unknown actor is “cast” as a legendary hitman in a fake film. Though it was a huge box-office success, taking RMB2.62 billion, it was Ma Hua’s weakest production to date, with Xing taking a chainsaw to Mitani’s finely-calibrated material.
Keep Real, which has a couple of the same cast (including Wei) and several of the same crew (d.p., editor, composer, stylist, sound, executive director), is almost like a second run at the same subject, with Xing exploring the clash between two opposites. In The Magic Hour it was truth vs pretence; in Keep Real it’s honesty vs corruption – the black-and-white world of a superhero vs the realities of real life where guanxi (“connections”) count more than fairness. Given the sensitivity of the subject-matter, which involves corrupt government officials in league with big business, Xing has been careful to set it in a totally fictional location, Laiyin county 莱茵县, which the English subtitles translate as Lying Town – the same fictional name used for the setting of The Magic Hour, though the latter had a very different, Mittel-Europeany look.
Bai’s most notable previous film appearance was as the lead in high-school coming-of-ager Yesterday Once More 谁的青春不迷茫 (2016), playing the loose-cannon classmate of the goody two-shoes swot who falls for him. During the first half of Keep Real he convincingly plays the slightly bemused but totally unbending superhero who strides around in his skintight costume and dispenses superhero-like wisdom to all and sundry; the joke is that, when he goes to stay with his mother (Zhao Haiyan 赵海燕, the mother in YOLO 热辣滚烫, 2024) she constantly bawls him out. It’s not an easy role to bring off, even in a black comedy; and in the second half it gets even tougher, as our superhero ditches his tights, cuts his flowing locks and tries to get along with the town’s corrupt officials – led by the county head (Zhang), his brother-in-law (lantern-jawed comedian Yu Yang 于洋) and the local industrialist who pulls their strings (Su Xiaoding 苏小玎).
Bai makes a decent stab at showing his character’s inner conflict without overdoing the comedy, totally baffled by simple facts like, if everything has a shortcut or way-around, what is the point of rules and regulations? Meanwhile, the character colour is left to the strong supporting cast, led by Zhang, utterly convincing as the two-timing, faux-sincere county head, Wei, equally good in comic and serious moments as the hero’s loyal (but cowardly) superhero friend, and Zhao as the superhero’s no-nonsense mother. Others like Ma Hua’s Huang Cailun 黄才伦 (also in Too Cool), as a docile secretary who finally rebels, are also fully invested their roles.
Though the film is basically anchored on a single joke, Xing’s script – co-written with three relative newbies and notable for not being sidetracked from its main theme by a love interest for its main character – comes up with just enough nuance and invention to go the two-hour distance, helped by a big VFX finale in which Lying Town almost meets its maker. The cleverest irony of all is that the county head eventually falls victim to one of his own lies to the superhero – that one must save the people before even him in an emergency. It’s also a neat trick that gets the script out of deep water.
Production values are high throughout, from the deliberately murky widescreen photography by the versatile Gao Hu 高虎 (Jianbing Man 煎饼侠, 2015; I Love You 我要和你在一起, 2022; Lose to Win 好像也没那么热血沸腾, 2023, which he also directed; Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants 射雕英雄传 侠之大者, 2025) to the VFX that power the finale. Music by the experienced Peng Fei 彭飞 is attentive and descriptive throughout. The film was shot from early Sep to early Nov 2024; its Chinese title is a four-character phrase that means “independent minded” or “not toeing the party line”. For the record, the English subtitles mistranslate the jobs of the leading officials: Wang Xinling is Laiyin’s county head, not mayor, while the corrupt industrialist’s father is the town’s deputy mayor, not vice-governor.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Beijing Leben Culture (CN), Beijing Maple Shuo Film Culture (CN), Xiangshan Domo Media.
Script: Xing Wenxiong, Li Shuye, Li Tianliang, Shi Qian. Photography: Gao Hu. Editing: Huang Shang. Music: Peng Fei. Art direction: Zheng Chen. Costumes: He Tianjiao, Tian Ye. Styling: Fu Lei. Sound: Shi Xiang, Yang Jiang, Zhao Nan. Action: Zhuang Yuanzhang. Visual effects: Wang Shaoshuai, Yang Yuejuan, Qin Yan, Zhang Wang. Executive direction: Qian Ru.
Cast: Bai Jingting (Wang Changhai), Wei Xiang (Xia Mu), Zhang Guoqiang (Wang Xinling, county head), Zhao Haiyan (Li Jiaolong, Wang Changhai’s mother), Su Xiaoding (Zhao Jinfeng, Jinfeng Group chairman), Yu Yang (Hu Zuochang, county head’s brother-in-law), Huang Cailun (Jin, Wang Xinling’s secretary), Ding Yongdai (Ding Zheng, investigator), Wang Zhi (Wang Yi, investigator), Liu Liu (Zhao Yongsheng, deputy mayor, Zhao Jinfeng’s father), Xu Zhisheng (parachuting man), Niu Li (second auntie), Guo Donglin (second auntie’s husband), Jin Zhu (third auntie), Gong Hanlin (third auntie’s husband), Ma Xudong (government clerk), He Guangzhi (Zhisheng, lawyer), Jiang Shimeng (Grey Widow), Song Muzi (Oily Man), Song Jiateng (Plant Hero), Sun Lirong (Sandstorm Woman), Zhang Youwei (Iceman), Jiang Yi (Super Ear), Zhang Xiaowan (Inner Voice), He Wenjun (The Copper Kid), Zhou Tienan (Sorghum), Li Fei (Glaucoma), Guo Yunqi (Steel Plate Hero).
Release: China, 3 Jul 2026.