Port of Call

踏血寻梅

Hong Kong, 2015, colour, 1.85:1, 120 mins. (premiere version), 98 mins. (release version).

Director: Weng Ziguang 翁子光 [Philip Yung].

Rating: 8/10.

Absorbing, offbeat crime drama centred on the grisly murder of a Mainland call-girl in Hong Kong.

STORY

Hong Kong, 2009. Originally from Hunan province, China, high-school student Wang Jiamei (Chun Xia), 16, arrived in Hong Kong a year ago from Shilong, Dongguan, across the border in Guangdong province, to join her mother Meifeng (Jin Yanling) and elder sister Wang Jiali (Li Yufei). One day in class, the girl next to her (Deng Yueping) slits her wrists, and the teacher (Wang Lan) almost blames Wang Jiamei; afterwards, a social worker (He Zhuolin) questions Wang Jiamei, who claims the teachers don’t like her for some reason. In 2010, the police find pools of blood in a flat in Shenshuibu [Sham Shui Po], Kowloon, after being alerted by an elderly neighbour (Chen Liyun); eccentric, divorced detective Zang (Guo Fucheng), from the Regional Crime Unit, leads the investigation with his colleagues Smokey (Tan Yaowen) and Huang Donghua (Yang Shimin). I: Seeking Mei 寻梅. The tenant in the flat was a delivery van driver, Ding Zicong (Bai Zhi). (Seven years ago, Wang Jiamei’s mother got remarried, to a Hong Konger, but as she couldn’t immediately get a Hong Kong visa the family moved to Dongguan to be nearer her husband. Wang Jiamei finally immigrated to Hong Kong, left school after the suicide event, and eventually became an escort girl.) From evidence at the scene, Zang believes Wang Jiamei was murdered in the flat during sex, chopped up, and flushed away. The obvious suspect is Ding Zicong, who’s disappeared, but with no body Wang Jiamei’s mother still tries to believe her daughter is alive. (Wang Jiamei was always scolded at home by her mother, who scraped a living as a singer. She only had her elder sister for comfort.) Ding Zicong hands himself into the police and admits to killing Wang Jiamei, saying she wanted to die. Zang interviews Prodigy Kai (Yuan Haoyang), a young triad friend of Ding Zicong, and also learns about Li Murong (Cai Jie), a female friend the latter used to have. The problem for the police is that there’s no body and they still can’t find Wang Jiamei’s head, which Ding Zicong says he dumped in the harbour. (After leaving school Wang Jiamei applied at a modelling agency but was turned down; the boss did, however, offer her work scouting talent in the street. She then progressed to working as a prostitute, under the name Kama. II: A Lonely Person 孤独的人. She developed a favourite, nicknamed Four-Eyes Ji [Li Yilang], with whom she made love for free.) Zang keeps obsessively investigating the case, despite being repeatedly told by his superior (Shao Meiqi) to stop. He still cannot solve the mystery of the letters “kdjfjdfj” found in Wang Jiamei’s effects. III: Painful Steps 踏血. In court, Deng Zicong describes in detail how he disposed of Wang Jiamei’s body. Later, Zang visits him in prison, still wanting to know _why_ he killed her and exactly what happened. IV: A Room with a View 看得见风景的房间. Zang solves the mystery of “kdjfjdfj”. In 2012, after spending the day with his daughter and ex-wife, he visits Wang Jiamei’s mother and elder sister.

REVIEW

The background and psychology of a seemingly motiveless murder of a teen prostitute from China are unpeeled with forensic skill in Port of Call 踏血寻梅, the best purely Hong Kong-financed movie since, on a genre level, Motorway 车手 (2012), and, on an “indie” level, The Midnight After 那夜凌晨，我坐上了旺角开往大埔的红VAN (2014). This third feature by Guangdong-born, Hong Kong-raised Weng Ziguang 翁子光 [Philip Yung], 37, is a huge step up in both ambition and scope, uniting some of the dreaminess and aimlessness of his debut Glamorous Youth 明媚时光 (2009) with the harder-bitten, crime-noir parts of his second film, social-messaging drama May We Chat 微交少女 (2013). Port of Call is the type of film that gives hope there’s still a future for Hong Kong cinema beyond talent co-productions with China, desperate exercises in retro nostalgia, and trashy local comedies.

But here’s the caveat: the above remarks apply only to the 120-minute version (aka Director’s Cut) premiered at the Hong Kong Film Festival in spring 2015, not to the much shorter cut released in cinemas eight months later. (All the awards and reviews were for the former, not for the latter.) Bucking the trend that shorter, post-festival versions are often better – think The Piano in a Factory 钢的琴 (which lost 17 minutes), Red Amnesia 闯入者 (12), Black Coal, Thin Ice 白日焰火 (3) – Port of Call is only a shadow of the original in its 98-minute release version. Rarely have 22 minutes been so crucial.

With all due respect to Weng’s multi-layered screenplay and the subtle, not-quite-real lighting by ace d.p. Christopher Doyle 杜可风, rarely has the editing been more crucial. Where the guiding spirit on the premiere version appears to have been Taiwan veteran Liao Qingsong 廖庆松 (credited as “editing director”), that on the general-release version – presumably done for commercial reasons – is well-known art-director/stylist/editor Zhang Shuping 张叔平 [William Chang], whose name doesn’t even appear on the premiere version. The 98-minute cut has hardly any structural differences, apart from the section on the detective’s wife and daughter being moved to later (after the courtroom sequence), and the solution to the “kdjfjdfj” puzzle revealed slightly earlier; instead, apart from slightly lessening the sex and gore, most of the missing 22 minutes is made up of trims to existing scenes, tiny deletions that are the tricks of the trade for any editor. It’s only when one watches the premiere version that one realises why the 98-minute version feels so unnaturally paced and is a rather average, 5/10 attempt at an obviously above-average crime drama.

Where the release version has no internal rhythm at all, merely a functional construction, the premiere one has a natural, confident flow that’s striking from the start. Put simply, it breathes. There’s the unmistakable sense of an epic story unfolding, by the conclusion of which all the players will be fully understood in their various shadings. With the extra footage fleshing out supporting characters in tiny ways, there’s also the sense of a whole universe, an ensemble drama in which everyone has a part to play, as well as a genuine climax in the long scene of the meeting and murder, only fully revealed near the end.

Weng was inspired by a 2008 newspaper story about a 16-year-old Mainland call-girl who’d been murdered and dismembered by a client in Hong Kong. (The script was finished by 2011, after which he looked for financing.) Though the film touches on hot-button local issues like Mainland immigration, cultural and linguistic differences, and unemployment, at heart Port of Call is a whydunit with a young Mainland dreamer at its centre. Around the 16-year-old Wang Jiamei, a girl from Hunan who’s ended up in Hong Kong thanks to her mother’s re-marriage, float a mass of contrasted characters: her irrascible mother (cleverly played by Taiwan veteran Jin Yanling 金燕玲 [Elaine Jin]), caring elder sister (Li Yufei 李雨霏, subtly understated), self-satisfied “boyfriend” (actor-singer Li Yilang 李逸朗), and the soulmate who eventually murders her (Bai Zhi 白只). After her death, the circle around her story grows to include a middle-aged, eccentric detective (Guo Fucheng 郭富城 [Aaron Kwok]), his raggedy collection of colleagues, and criminal types like a cocky street punk (Yuan Haoyang 袁浩扬, good).

For some, Wang Jiamei was just another Mainland wannabe who drifted into prostitution to make money, for others a grisly case to be investigated and filed as soon as possible – among the latter, the experienced Shao Meiqi 邵美琪 [Maggie Shiu] is terrific as the detective’s bottom-line boss who’s sympathetic (and maybe more) towards him. The overall portrait of Hong Kong – from its claustrophobic interiors to compressed-depth street exteriors – is of a cramped melting-pot with unbearable financial pressures, hardly a new image of the territory but presented in a slightly different way from the norm. Drifting through this morass, almost in a separate universe, is Guo’s detective Zang, who just won’t let the case drop even after the murderer has handed himself in and confessed. Zang wants to know why he killed Wang Jiamei, seemingly with her agreement.

It’s this angle, which grows stronger as the film proceeds, that raises Port of Call above the level of an average Hong Kong crime procedural. After introducing Wang Jiamei in a striking opening, the film then veers away from her to introduce other characters before gradually working its way back to her and the central crime, all the time sliding back and forth between 2009, when she first joins her family in Hong Kong, and 2010, when she’s murdered. (In the early going, dates appear on screen to guide the audience; increasingly, though, they’re not used, to no loss of comprehension.) Weng’s screenplay isn’t perfect: the character of a chain-smoking detective (played at full throttle by Tan Yaowen 谭耀文) is way too forced, like a persistent health-lobby ad; a nightmare sequence involving the detective is unnecessary; the whole puzzle of the letters “kdjfjdfj” (found among the dead girl’s effects) is a corny device straight out of romantic melodrama and could easily have been dropped; and some of the supporting characters are from the Hong Kong Film Stereotypes Manual.

However, the film’s biggest flaw, which ultimately knocks it down from 9/10 to 8/10, is the casting of Guo as the detective. Like so many of his laudable attempts to get away from purely commercial roles, Guo, despite greyed locks, tufty face hair and slightly eccentric glasses, always looks like he’s acting. At best he’s OK, at worst he’s mannered; Guo never, alas, communicates his character’s sadness or single-mindedness in a way that the audience should care. Imagine what a real middle-aged character actor could have done with the role, and the difference is clear.

Despite that, the de facto lead performances – even if the actors don’t get lead billing – make up for the deficit. As the Mainland dreamer, 23-year-old, Kunming-born Chun Xia 春夏 (literally, “Spring Summer”, stage name of Li Junjie 李俊杰) is perfect casting, in her first big-screen role after several Mainland TV dramas. The 23-year-old actress is physically convincing as (a worldly) 16, and equally credible as a mixture of dreamer and pragmatist. In an equally complex role as her soulmate/murderer, Hong Kong theatre actor Bai Zhi (real name: Ling Zhihao 凌智豪), 36, acquires layers of colour more slowly than Chun Xia but emerges fully drawn by the end. Among the other supporting actors, Mainland-born Cai Jie 蔡洁 (the nurse in Aberdeen 香港仔, 2014) is memorable as the murderer’s previous, hard-nosed girlfriend.

A subtle score by Ding Ke 丁可, using solo cello, piano, voice and guitar, adds an unworldly atmosphere throughout, and production design by long-timer He Jianxiong 何剑雄 [Cyrus Ho] is pointed without being intrusive. The film’s English title is never explained, though Weng has stated that he took it from the 1948 Swedish film Hamnstad, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman, which also centres on a suicidal heroine. . The Chinese one literally means “Walking on Blood, Searching for Plums”, a pun on the identical-sounding Chinese proverb 踏雪寻梅 (“Walking on Snow, Searching for Plums”). The extra wrinkle is that the word for “plum” (梅/méi) is also part of Wang Jiamei’s name, so the film’s title also means “Walking on Blood, Searching for Mei”.

CREDITS

Presented by Mei Ah Film Production (HK), Mei Ah Entertainment Development (HK). Produced by Golden Gate Productions (HK).

Script: Weng Ziguang [Philip Yung]. Photography: Christopher Doyle. Editing: Weng Ziguang [Philip Yung], Zhu Jiayi. Editing direction: Zhang Shuping [William Chang], Liao Qingsong. Editing advice: Huang Hai. Music: Ding Ke. Art direction: He Jianxiong [Cyrus Ho]. Costume design: Chen Ziwen. Sound: Chen Zhifeng, Du Duzhi. Action: Yi Tianxiong. Styling for Guo Fucheng: Wu Lilu [Dora Ng]. Visual effects: Zheng Wenzheng, Zhang Yaohao (Creasun Digital International).

Cast: Guo Fucheng [Aaron Kwok] (Zang, police detective), Jin Yanling [Elaine Jin] (Meifeng/May, Wang Jiamei’s mother), Tan Yaowen (Yanchan/Smokey, Zang’s colleague), Chun Xia [Li Junjie] (Wang Jiamei/Kama), Bai Zhi [Ling Zhihao] (Ding Zicong), Cai Jie (Li Murong), Shao Meiqi [Maggie Shiu] (Luo, Zang’s boss], Aidi [Eddie Chan] (Zang’s former boss), Yang Shimin (Huang Donghua/Flora, Zang’s colleague), Li Yufei (Wang Jiali, Wang Jiamei’s elder sister), Yuan Haoyang (Shentong Kai/Prodigy Kai), Li Yilang (Siyan Ji/Four-Eyes Ji, Wang Jiamei’s lover), Tan Bingwen (Xiao, Wang Jiamei’s step-father), Chen Liyun (Ding Zicong’s old neighbour), Tai Bao (Wang Jiamei’s father), Liang Xiaobing (Chang, Zang’s ex-wife), Chen Guoxin (on-duty policeman), Mai Deluo (Ma), Che Baoluo [Paul Carr] (Ding Zicong’s father), Yang Ling (Ding Zicong’s mother), Wu Jiaxing (Four-Eyes Ji’s girlfriend), He Zhuolin (Mai, school social worker), Wang Lan (schoolteacher), Deng Yueping (Wang Jiamei’s suicidal classmate), Lishahua [Zerisawa/Courtney Wu] (Ding Zicong’s abusive boss), Dong Ying’en (naked woman), Ou Weiquan (restaurant manager), He Meihao (Xia, Meifeng’s work friend), Shao Zifeng (modelling agency manager), Luo Qing, Shao Zhi’en, Zhang Shiwen, Zhang Shiya (Wang Jiamei’s friends), Guo Hanzhu (Wang Jiamei’s teenage client), She Zhuoying (Mei, young girl in playground), Wu Lin (her grandmother), Zheng Minqing (young Yin Shihui), Xie Fei (Zang’s daughter), Tan Liangyin (crazy man in bus), Zhang Zile (young Ding Zicong), Du Yiwen (adult Yin Shihui, guide at zoo), Gong Yuan (woman in Wang Jiamei’s poster photo).

Premiere: Hong Kong Film Festival (Closing Film), 6 Apr 2015.

Release: Hong Kong, 3 Dec 2015.