No Man’s Land

无人区

China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 115 mins.

Director: Ning Hao 宁浩.

Rating: 7/10.

Long-shelved desert Eastern is only partly worth the wait, despite top packaging.

STORY

Northwest China, the present day. In a barren desert landscape a man (Huang Bo) hunts a protected species of bird using a falcon. He’s arrested by a forestry policeman (Xiao Li) but goes free when the policeman’s jeep is smashed by another vehicle driven by the man’s boss, a falcon trafficker (Tobgyal). The policeman dies in the cash. Some time later, an ambitious lawyer, Pan Xiao (Xu Zheng), arrives in the remote region after a 10-hour journey by train to defend the trafficker and gets him acquitted for lack of evidence. Pan Xiao asks for his fee to be paid but the trafficker, who has a deal coming up for some merchandise, says he’ll pay him in 10 days’ time. As collateral, Pan Xiao takes the man’s car and sets out on the long drive home – across 500 kilometres of “no man’s land” desert – to make a killing on a book about the case. On the road he runs afoul of the lorry containing the trafficker’s merchandise, which is being driven by two men (Wang Shuangbao, Sun Jianmin) to a remote village called Erdao Liangzi. Pan Xiao tries to set fire to it, in order to throw them off. Later, when the bird-hunter tries to flag him down on the road, he accidentally runs him over. Needing fuel, Pan Xiao stops at the only petrol station for the next 410 kilometres, where the owner (Yang Xinming) tries to charge him RMB1,500 for a full tank, a price which includes an obligatory RMB1,200 session with a prostitute, Jiaojiao (Yu Nan). Jiaojiao claims she’s actually a professional dancer from Shanxi Academy of Art, and begs Pan Xiao to take her with him. Pan Xiao refuses and quickly drives off. He tries to set fire to the bird-hunter’s body in a gully but fails and returns to the garage for petrol. The trafficker suddenly appears, angry over Pan Xiao’s attempt to burn the lorry with his merchandise; Pan Xiao flees, and later finds Jiaojiao has stowed away in the boot of the car. En route, he crashes the car by accident, and then he and Jiaojiao have a major surprise.

REVIEW

Shelved for four years during protracted negotiations with the censors, desert-set action movie No Man’s Land 无人区 by Mainland director Ning Hao 宁浩 is only partly worth the wait. Looking less innovative now than it would have seemed at the time, this modern-day Eastern, set in the barren landscapes of Northwest China, is nowhere near as violent (at least in the released version) as it was reputed to be and starts to become seriously repetitive from its midpoint as the script juggles its desperados around in one after another car-crash, gun scene and plot reversal. It’s never less than visually striking, thanks to the ochry widescreen photography of Xinjiang province’s dusty Hami prefecture by Du Jie 杜杰 (Crazy Racer 疯狂的赛车, 2008; Kora 转山, 2011; Taichi Zero 太极1  从零开始, 2012), and is jogged along by a plangent, Morricone-ish score (guitars and Mexican-style trumpet solos). What’s lacking is a broader dramatic arc to bind together the rondo of life-and-death confrontations and give the main character’s journey a true apotheosis. The audience hears his thoughts in occasional voice-overs, but there’s no emotional pay-off, despite the fact that, by the end, the movie has long abandoned its earlier black comedy for a pointlessly nihilistic cynicism.

Shot during Mar-Jun 2009, but repeatedly missing announced release dates during 2010 and early 2011, the film gradually attained legendary status as a missing-presumed-dead production that was never going to be publicly seen due to its rumoured extreme violence and negativism. No Man’s Land was to be the culmination of a meteoric rise by Ning who, after gaining a festival footing with the arty Incense 香火 (2003) and Mongolian Ping Pong 绿草地 (2005), had hit the bigtime with the madcap comedies Crazy Stone 疯狂的石头 (2006) and Crazy Racer, both with goofy actor Huang Bo. No Man’s Land looked to confirm his crown as China’s wildest and most successful maverick, this time with a handsomely budgeted action movie in an extreme location.

It was not to be: the film laboured through some five different cuts, reportedly centred not so much on the violence but more on the lead role of the lawyer and his transformation from an ambitious, dog-eat-dog character to a more sympathetic member of the human race. Meanwhile, China’s film industry motored on, with similar desert action movies like Gao Qunshu’s Windblast 西风烈 (2010, also shot by d.p. Du, and able to bill itself as “China’s first crime-action-western”). Ning himself directed the busy but uneven period heist movie Guns and Roses 黄金大劫案, released in spring 2012, as well as producing the classy crime rondo Lethal Hostage 边境风云 (2012). Then, after being all but forgotten, news suddenly came in Oct 2013 that No Man’s Land was to be finally released at the end of the year.

In the event, the film still reaped a more than respectable RMB250 million or so, considerably more than Guns and Roses‘ RMB150 million, and as a largely larky mixture of car stunts, gunplay and twisty plotting it’s okay entertainment. The release version runs smoothly and shows almost no signs of being fiddled with, apart from an opening title noting “this story is purely imaginary” and a jarringly optimistic three-minute sequence (shot some time later) featuring actress Tao Hong 陶虹 and one of the leads. Tao, a veteran in her own right (A Beautiful New World 美丽新世界, 1998; Sky Lovers 天上的恋人, 2002), was a lead in Ning’s Guns and Roses, and is conveniently the real-life wife of No Man’s Land lead, Xu Zheng 徐峥. But the sequence adds nothing to what the film has already messaged earlier, and only succeeds in ending the movie on a distractingly rosy note.

Xu, who shot the film before his notable Lost on Journey 人在囧途 (2010) and mega-hit Lost in Thailand 人再囧途之泰囧 (2012), is especially good in his opening scenes as an ambitious city lawyer who’s come to make his name and fortune in the outback by defending a villain on a capital charge. It’s not so far from his persona as the duplicitous executive who’s laid low by misfortune in Journey, though as the black comedy recedes and his character becomes more humane, the role is weakened. He’s progressively outclassed by the line-up of desperados, especially re-voiced Tibetan actor Tobgyal 多布杰 (Kekexili: Mountain Patrol 可可西里, 2004) as the taciturn villain, Huang Bo as his even more psychotic sidekick and Yang Xinming 杨新鸣 as a shady garage-owner. Actress Yu Nan 余男, then at the start of a period taking more action-centred roles, holds her own but looks miscast in a role that calls for a trashier, girlier performance. (She subsequently returned to the the northwest deserts for a harder-arsed role in Windblast.)

Production values are top class, with the vehicular action by Hong Kong car-stunt ace Luo Lixian 罗礼贤 [Bruce Law] often stealing the show from the humans.

CREDITS

Presented by China Film Group (CN), Beijing Orange Sky Golden Harvest TV & Film Production (CN), Beijing Guoli Changsheng Movies & TV Productions (CN), Yinji Entertainment & Media (CN), Beijing Galloping Horse Film (CN), Emperor Film & Entertainment (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Beijing Orange Sky Golden Harvest TV & Film Production (CN), Beijing Guoli Changsheng Movies & TV Productions (CN), Yinji Entertainment & Media (CN), Beijing Galloping Horse Film (CN), Emperor Film & Entertainment (Beijing) (CN), Dongyang Yingyue Film Production (CN).

Script: Shu Ping, Xing Aina, Cui Siwei, Wang Hongwei, Shang Ke, Ning Hao. Photography: Du Jie. Editor: Du Yuan, Tang Hua. Music: Wang Zongxian [Nathan Wong], Dong Dongdong, Jiang Yongjun. Art direction: Hao Yi. Costumes: Liu Qian. Special effects: Luo Lixian [Bruce Law], Luo Yimin. Visual effects: Wang Lifeng, Steve Katz, Miao Chun (Beijing Wan Fang Xing Xing Digital Technology). Script consultation: Gui Youming [Beaver Kwei], Huang Yuan. Executive director: Kuerbanjiang.

Cast: Xu Zheng (Pan Xiao), Yu Nan (Jiaojiao/Li Yuxin), Tobgyal (Lao Da), Huang Bo (Lao Er, Lao Da’s underling), Wang Shuangbao, Sun Jianmin (lorry drivers), Huang Jingyi (Liu San), Wang Hui (Liu Si), Yang Xinming (petrol station boss), Guo Hong (his wife), Wang Pei (Wart/Zit, his son), Zhao Hu (Wang, police officer), Tao Hong (ballet teacher), Xiao Li (forestry policeman), Zhu Hongjun (horsecart driver), Tang Juan (his wife), Han Weimin (court judge), Ning Hao (bystander next to Pan Xiao).

Release: China, 3 Dec 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 13 Jan 2014.)