Double Xposure

二次曝光

China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 105 mins.

Director: Li Yu 李玉.

Rating: 3/10.

Initially intriguing mystery drama jumps the rails halfway and sinks with all hands.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. Song Qi (Fan Bingbing), a plastic surgery specialist at beauty clinic EverCare, run by Dr. Hao (Chen Chong), starts to lose control of her bearings. As well as caring for her father, Song Deshun (Yao Anlian), who’s in a nursing home, she starts to suspect that her boyfriend Liu Dong (Feng Shaofeng), a surgeon at the clinic, is two-timing her. After a drunken party thrown by her best friend, Zhou Xiaoxi (Huo Siyan), she sees Liu Dong making love to Zhou Xiaoxi. Later, after Liu Dong denies the affaire, she confronts Zhou Xiaoxi at the latter’s home; during a heated argument Song Qi strangles her and buries the body in the courtyard. At the clinic Song Qi convinces a client, Meimei (Wang Di), to take on Zhou Xiaoxi’s features in order to pass off her death as a temporary missing person’s case. A police detective, Liu Jian (Fang Li), interviews Meimei after her surgery but remains suspicious over Song Qi’s involvement, as does Liu Dong. Under emotional pressure, Song Qi temporarily flees the city to a remote spot and later, seeing Liu Jian following her, runs him over with her car. But when a policewoman (Liang Jing) arrives on the scene the following morning, Liu Jian’s body has disappeared.

REVIEW

In their third consecutive film together, following the interesting Lost in Beijing 苹果 (2007) and deceptively impressive Buddha Mountain 观音山 (2010), director Li Yu 李玉 and actress Fan Bingbing 范冰冰 go down with all hands in Double Xposure 二次曝光, a clumsy and finally risible attempt at a commercial-style psychodrama. A radical departure into genre territory by Li, whose previous four movies have generally adopted a realist approach to relationship stories, Xposure starts intriguingly and rates the benefit of the doubt during its bumpy first hour. But as it finally jumps the rails into almost a separate movie, and its affectations and disdain for its audience mount, the film shows its true colours as a preposterous star vehicle for Fan jazzed up with fancy direction and artsy touches.

Marketed in China as a steamy, twist-filled mystery-drama, with Fan cast opposite up-and-coming actor Feng Shaofeng 冯绍峰 (White Vengeance 鸿门宴传奇, 2011; Painted Skin: The Resurrection 画皮II, 2012), it’s barely that. Fan and Feng show no real sexual chemistry on screen, and the twists, which come by the truckload in the second half, are simply script devices, lacking the emotional oomph that comes from the viewer being immersed in the story and characters. In their two previous films together, Li provided Fan with opportunities to extend her range beyond being an exotic-looking clotheshorse – challenges to which she rose with some success. Xposure, her first real leading role in two years, must have seemed on paper just what her career needed after a succession of small parts; in practice, it’s just the opposite. Though the actress-turned-media diva throws her all into an emotionally and physically challenging role, and is always watchable, she’s basically swimming in very shallow writing waters that expose her shortcomings. For every scene in which Fan is impressive, there are two more in which she seems to be just grandstanding, seemingly with Li’s assent.

Aside from the quietly burnished Dam Street 红颜 (2005), Xposure is Li’s most handsomely mounted picture. Widescreen photography of Beijing and the wide open landscape of Xinjiang by Germany’s Florian Zinke 陆一帆 (who co-shot the Gobi Desert comedy No Liar, No Cry 不怕贼惦记, 2011) is always eye-teasing, whether handheld to show emotional dislocation or more composed to just look good. It’s supported to atmospheric effect by the simple score of Scottish musician-producer Howie B (aka Howard Bernstein), whose shifting, major-minor chords impart a sense of mystery and occasional uplift even when the script is clearly not up to the job it’s set itself.

Xposure shows yet again that genre movies are not easy to do, especially by film-makers who have no natural aptitude for them. Co-writing again with her regular producer Fang Li 方励, Li initially sets up an intriguing premise – an employee at a beauty clinic-cum-plastic surgery goes off the rails when she suspects her boyfriend is two-timing her – but she can’t really develop it beyond a 30-minute first act. The neat idea of plastic surgery being used to conceal a killing is unbelievably handled before the movie veers off down another path – a search by Fan’s character for her family roots after the film’s major twist an hour in. The truth is then delivered in big gobs of information during the final 45 minutes, capped by a dreamy, idealistic ending that’s simply ludicrous.

As a disbelieving policewoman who’s the trigger to the Big Twist, Liang Jing 梁静 (Design of Death 杀生, 2012; All Apologies 爱的替身, 2012) brings a no-nonsense approach to her part as Fan’s performance becomes more and more eccentric. As the clinic head, veteran Chen Chong 陈冲 [Joan Chen] coasts likewise, while Huo Siyan 霍思燕 (Distant Thunder 迷城, 2010; Sleepwalker in 3D 梦游, 2011) is okay in the largest female role outside Fan’s. The always reliable Yao Anlian 姚安濂 brings a quiet dignity to the father of Fan’s character.

CREDITS

Presented by Laurel Films (CN). Produced by Laurel Films (CN).

Script: Li Yu, Fang Li. Original story: Fang Li, Li Yu. Photography: Florian Zinke. Editing: Li Yu, Yuan Ze. Music: Howie B. Production design: Liu Weixin. Art direction: Li Jun. Sound: Du Zegang, Du Duzhi. Visual effects: Daysview Digital Image.

Cast: Fan Bingbing (Song Qi), Feng Shaofeng (Liu Dong), Huo Siyan (Zhou Xiaoxi), Chen Chong [Joan Chen] (Dr. Hao), Yao Anlian (Song Deshun; Wang Tiehui), Kong Wei (Wang Meiling, Song Qi’s mother), Liang Jing (policewoman), Wang Di (Meimei), Fang Li (Liu Jian), Yang Siwei (young Song Qi), Kang Shengwen (young Liu Dong), He Peiren (Lin, the lawyer), Yu Lu, Zhao Yue’e (female customers), Yuan Ze (male customer), Huang Huan (Dr. Huang), Howie B (party DJ), Li Yi (restaurant owner), Zhao Wei (chef), Sun Jiandang (forensic officer), Chen Honghai, Zhang Shuai, Zhang Dapeng (policemen), Li Jun, Wu Xin (1995 policemen), Kang Hua (traffic policeman), Jiang Xiaoliang, Sun Zhigong (Xinjiang mine workers), Yuan Yuan (hospital nurse), Yuxiang Jingting (young girl on beach), Yang Feifei (her mother).

Release: China, 29 Sep 2012.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 15 Oct 2012.)