Vegetate

我是植物人

China, 2010, colour, 2.35:1, 99 mins.

Director: Wang Jing 王竞.

Rating: 7/10.

Whistle-blower drama, centred on a woman in the pharma industry, has two fine central performances.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. Three years after collapsing in the street the day she left her job, pharmacist Zhu Li (Feng Bo) wakes up from a coma in hospital suffering from partial amnesia. Three months later, and still weak, she checks herself out with the help of paparazzo Liu Cong (Li Naiwen), who senses a good story for his paper. Liu Cong equips her with new documents that get her a job at Fangchen Pharmaceuticals, where she accidentally discovers that an anaesthetic produced by the company – Infamine – was not properly tested. Infamine seriously harmed at least one young girl, Xiaoyun (Shen Yue), whose father has been unsuccessfully trying to claim damages. Between trying to reconstruct her own past, Zhu Li joins Liu Cong and a lawyer, Hao Zhenzhong (Chang Xiaoyang), in trying to expose Fangchen’s cover-up.

REVIEW

The third teaming of director Wang Jing 王竞 and writer/producer Xie Xiaodong 谢晓东 again uses a social issue to background a drama that is as much about the relationship between its main characters as the issue itself, though here the latter has more prominence than in either End of the Year 一年到头 (2008, migrant workers) or Invisible Killer 无形杀 (2009, the internet’s destructive power). Made with the same visual finesse as Invisible Killer – with cold, corporate Beijing contrasted with the warmer-hued, more homely look of Shaanxi, which the protagonist visits to trace her family – Vegetate 我是植物人 doesn’t blend the human and professional stories as smoothly as the 2009 movie, and in its latter half, as the leads take on the big-business baddies, packs in too many convenient twists for its own good.

However, from its opening scenes, as the stressed-out main character leaves her high-powered job only to collapse after a traffic accident, the movie has an assurance and refined visual language that marks it out from so much other Mainland production. Put simply, Wang and Xie (working under the Massway Film 北京众道电影发行 banner) are one of the most interesting movie-making teams in China’s current industry, with a signature that’s become immediately noticeable.

In a very different role from her cool cop in Invisible Killer, actress Feng Bo 冯波 holds the screen as the amnesiac pharma expert without becoming either over-fragile or gung-ho tough. Quietly driven, and establishing a relationship with the sleazy but likeable paparazzo of Li Naiwen 李乃文 that starts out as one of convenience for both of them, Feng’s Zhu Li develops naturally from a woman building a new life to a quiet crusader who finds the case she’s investigating has resonances far beyond what she dreamed of. Though the whistle-blowing dominates the movie to its detriment in the latter stages, the chemistry between Feng and Li (Teeth of Love 爱情的牙齿, 2007; Assembly 集结号, 2007) still makes the picture – which would further benefit from a better English title – highly watchable.

CREDITS

Presented by China Movie Channel (CN), Massway Film Distribution (CN). Produced by Massway Film Distribution (CN).

Script: Xie Xiaodong, Zhou Zhan. Photography: Liu Younian. Editing: Feng Wen. Music: Yang Sili. Art direction: Jin Qili. Costumes: Guo Lisha. Sound: Wang Changrui. Visual effects: Wang Chenyang. Executive direction: Liu Yang.

Cast: Feng Bo (Zhu Li), Li Naiwen (Liu Cong), Zhang Li (An Min, Zhu Li’s boss), Chang Xiaoyang (Hao Zhenzhong, lawyer), Liu Yan (Zhang), Wang Huan (Lu), Cui Zhibo (Li), Zhang Yongqiang (Xiaoyun’s father), Zheng Ruodan (Xiaoyun’s mother), Shen Yue (Xiaoyun), Wang Ruihong (Zhu Li’s mother), Hou Shu (actress), Ma Fucai (actress’ bodyguard), Ma Wen (Zhang, nurse), Fu Chaofan (Guo, doctor), Yuan Yu (Sun Xiaolin), Liu Yang (Xiaosong), Liu Jixun (policeman), Li Yi (Liu Cong’s ex-girlfriend), Huang Yongfan (Xiaojin), Liu Fang (information officer), Xie Changjiang (security officer), Bate’er, Li Yansheng (doctors), Li Shu (Shaanxi father), Gong Cuiying (Shaanxi mother), Wang Gang (Hu,editor), Guo Lisha (worker).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (View China), 17 Jun 2010.

Release: China, 15 Oct 2010.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 20 Jun 2010.)