Chongqing Hot Pot
火锅英雄
China, 2016, colour, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Yang Qing 杨庆.
Rating: 7/10.
Black comedy about a double bank heist has some fine moments but no sense of overall tone.
STORY
Chongqing, central China, the present day. Friends for over 10 years from high-school days – when they formed a band called The Grasshoppers of Shapingba 沙坪坝草蜢 – Liu Bo (Chen Kun), Xu Dong (Qin Hao) and Wang Pingchuan (Yu Entai) are co-owners of hot-pot restaurant Old Schoolmates 老同学 in one of the many air-raid shelters and tunnels that honeycomb the city. But the trio are trying to sell it, as the restaurant isn’t making any money. Liu Bo has gambling debts of RMB230,000 to loan shark Brother Seven (Chen Nuo), Wang Pingchuan is planning to move back to Beijing, and Xu Dong is close to divorce with his wife Mengmeng. A potential buyer (Ling Lin) offers them RMB400,000 on condition they make it bigger; but with no money, they’re forced to do the extension work themselves. While digging, they come up through the floor of a bank vault, in which there’s a large pile of cash for the taking. After deciding not to steal it, they’re left with the problem of how to seal up the hole from the inside of the vault. They then discover that an old school friend, Yu Xiaohui (Bai Baihe), works in the bank, so Liu Bo, whom she used to have a crush on, arranges a get-together. Yu Xiaohui, who is unhappy with the way she is treated at work, proposes an elaborate plan by which they will be able not only to seal up the hole in the vault floor but also to steal all the money. All she wants in return is a love letter she wrote to Liu Bo at high school. On the eve of the planned bank operation, Brother Seven visits the restaurant demanding his money from Liu Bo. He makes off with a bag containing some cash that Liu Bo “borrowed” from the vault – without telling his friends – in order to gamble with. Next morning, things get even worse: as the quartet is about to launch its caper, a masked gang robs the bank and holds the staff, including Yu Xiaohui, hostage.
REVIEW
Seven years after his debut, the entertaining caper comedy One Night in Supermarket 夜•店 (2009), Sichuan-born writer-director Yang Qing 杨庆, now in his mid-30s, comes up with his second feature, a black comedy about four high-school friends who turn amateur bank robbers. More ambitious than Supermarket, and overall less successful, Chongqing Hot Pot 火锅英雄 is still very entertaining in stretches, with its three name leads (Chen Kun 陈坤, Bai Baihe 白百合, Qin Hao 秦昊) having an easy rapport.
Supermarket, which was entirely set in one location, maintained interest across its 80-or-so minutes through lively dialogue, lots of characters and cameos, and a light touch enhanced with several clever twists. Hot Pot goes for a more ambitious and often heavier canvas – on a physical side by being set in the grungy, claustrophobic and often rainy backstreets of Chongqing, and on an emotional side by weaving a love story, fractured friendships and some unseemly violence into what is basically a black comedy about a double bank heist. Yang’s script often can’t support all this emotional baggage, and its structure is unbalanced. With most of the clever stuff coming in the final 40 minutes – when the double heists take place – the first half is largely a long lead-up detailing background and relationships, sometimes jokey, sometimes serious. The script tries to balance the lop-sided structure by opening on the day of the heists and then flashing back; but for most of the first 50 minutes it’s not clear quite what Hot Pot is meant to be.
After the intriguing opening, in which a gang wearing masks of characters from Journey to the West breaks into a bank, the film rewinds to introduce the owners of a hotpot restaurant in one of the many air-raid shelters and tunnels than honeycomb the city. In fact, the three former high-school pals are trying to sell the bankrupt eaterie and their friendship is being stretched: one, Liu Bo, is up to his ears in gambling debts and under a deadline from a loan shark, another is on the verge of divorcing his naggy wife, and the third is planning to move back to Beijing. When they snag a buyer on condition they extend the restaurant, they undertake the digging themselves – and end up breaking through the floor of a bank vault stuffed with cash.
The first twist is that they decide not to steal the money (too complicated, too troublesome); but that means they have to somehow repair the hole from inside the bank. Luckily an old high-school friend, Yu Xiaohui, works there, and she’s fed up with her treatment by the staff; not so luckily she once had a teenage crush on Liu Bo that was never resolved. Despite that, she’s happy to screw the bank, and comes up with a plan not only to clandestinely repair the hole from inside the vault but also to steal the money as well. The visualisation of her plan is beautifully staged, recalling a slew of other Mainland caper films from Crazy Stone 疯狂的石头 (2006) onwards. The script sags, however, for the next 20 minutes as it deals with Liu Bo and Yu Xiaohui’s relationship, and Liu Bo’s home life with his elderly grandfather and troubles with loan-sharks. When the film returns to the present, the viewer then realises the opening robbery is just one of two on the same morning, setting the scene for some clever and blackly comic antics.
Even then, however, the film doesn’t establish a thoroughgoing tone: one very violent scene seems out of place in a film like this, and a one-on-one finale in Chongqing’s rain-drenched backstreets looks more like a South Korean gangster movie with its blood-letting and fancy visual flourishes. A lighter coda tries to restore the theme of friendship but it all feels like too little, too late, with no emotional tug.
Individual performances are fine, with Chen – now 40 and essaying less metrosexual roles – almost unrecognisable from his usual well-manicured look and believable as the gambling-addicted Liu Bo. Continuing the scruffy look of the male leads, Qin, who’s developed into one of China’s most interesting actors of his generation (Mystery 浮城谜事, 2012; Blind Massage 推拿, 2014; Rock Hero 摇滚英雄, 2015), carves a typically strong profile as the pals’ de facto leader, while TV actor-presenter Yu Entai 喻恩泰 is OK as the group’s beta-male. (An extra joke for Chinese viewers is hearing all three actors putting on strong Chongqing accents.) In the sole lead female role, Bai, speaking more standard Mandarin, holds her own among the men with her wide-eyed blend of innocence and determination, though her character is shortchanged by the script and she’s unable to establish any romantic chemistry with Chen. Other roles are colourful bits, solidly played.
The widescreen photography by Liao Ni 廖拟 (Crossing the Mountain 翻山, 2009; The Continent 后会无期, 2014) has a somewhat grubby, humid feel which fits the metropolis, and avoids the usual Chongqing scenic cliches, while the production design by Lin Mu 林木 (Deadly Delicious 双食记, 2008; Design of Death 杀生, 2012; Beijing Love Story 北京爱情故事, 2014) is utterly authentic, epecially the set for the tacky hotpot restaurant. The film’s Chinese title means “Hotpot Heroes”.
CREDITS
Presented by New Classics Media (CN), CKF Pictures (CN), Wanda Media (CN), HH (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Khorgos Enlight Media (CN). Produced by CKF Pictures (CN).
Script: Yang Qing. Photography: Liao Ni. Editing: Li Nanyi. Music: Peng Fei, Zhao Yingjun. Art direction: Lin Mu. Styling: Lin Mu. Sound: Huang Zheng. Action: Yi Hong-pyo.
Cast: Chen Kun (Liu Bo), Bai Baihe (Yu Xiaohui), Qin Hao (Xu Dong), Yu Entai (Wang Pingchuan/Yanjing/Four Eyes), Chen Nuo (Brother Seven), Wang Yanlin (bank robber in Xuanzang mask, leader), Yin Fang (bank robber in Monkey King mask), Li Jiuxiao (bank robber in Pigsy mask), Zhang Yichi (bank robber in Sandy mask), Xia Tian (Zhang, bank employee), Song Wenxin (Kuang, bank manager), Tang Zuohui (Li Bo’s grandfather), Ling Lin (Zhang, potential buyer), Zhou Zan (bank head), Chen Wei (Liu Bo’s mother), Run Tu (bank robbers’ driver), Mou Shanshan (Fat Xu, bank employee), Yang Binxia (voice of Mengmeng, Xu Dong’s wife), Wang Yingming (bank CEO), Li Xiusheng (Yu Xiaohui’s father).
Premiere: Hong Kong Film Festival (Co-Opening Film), 21 Mar 2016.
Release: China, 1 Apr 2016.