Ice Poison
冰毒
Taiwan, 2014, colour, 16:9, 95 mins.
Director: Zhao Deyin 赵德胤 [Midi Z].
Rating: 3/10.
A grindingly slow look at rural poverty and drug use in rural eastern Myanmar.
STORY
Myanmar, northern Shan state, the present day. After a poor vegetable harvest, a son (Wang Xinghong) asks permission from his father (Zhou Caichang) to work in a jade mine instead but the father opposes it. Finally, they decide to buy a second-hand moped, using their cow as a deposit. Down in the main town, Lashio, the son plies for trade as a moped-taxi at the bus station. He finally gets a customer – a young Chinese Burmese woman, Sanmei (Wu Kexi), who has come back from China to see her dying grandfather and help with his funeral. Sanmei’s family are originally from Huangcaoba, in Yunnan province, but she now lives in Fengjie, Sichuan province, while her husband, Cai, works in Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong. She tells her mother that she would rather stay in Burma with her young son, but her husband would not allow her to bring him back with her. The moped driver meets Sanmei again when he drops off a mobile phone on which she has a call coming. Sanmei learns she can make money by dealing in “ice” (crystal meth), and later hires the moped driver to help her with deliveries.
REVIEW
Taiwan-based film-maker Zhao Deyin 赵德胤 [Midi Z], 32, returns again to Myanmar, the country of his birth, for Ice Poison 冰毒, another documentary-like feature looking at the hopeless state of life in the eastern state of Shan, a multi-ethnic enclave bordering China, Laos and Thailand. Less grungy and downbeat than his first feature, Return to Burma 归来的人 (2011), which followed a construction worker going home from Taiwan, it’s still crippled by taciturn dialogue and thin content, making a potentially interesting subject a long haul even at 95 minutes.
As a young farmer-turned-moped driver who becomes involved in dealing crystal meth (the “ice” of the title) when he meets a fellow ethnic Chinese who’s returned from China, Zhao’s regular actor Wang Xinghong 王兴洪, 31 – who like the director was born in Myanmar but went to Taiwan to study – is largely impenetrable as a character. More lively is Taiwan theatre actress/dancer Wu Kexi 吴可熙, from Zhao’s second, Thai-set feature Poor Folk 穷人。榴莲。麻药。偷渡客 (2012), as the young woman who uses him as a driver, though as soon as their business relationship finally starts after 70 minutes the film is virtually over. With the director handing over camera duties this time to d.p. Fan Shengxiang 范胜翔 , the film has a more attractive look, especially in light-dappled interiors, but that hardly compensates for the grindingly slow pace. A final scene is not for squeamish animal-lovers.
CREDITS
Produced by Seashore Image Productions (TW), Myanmar Montage Film (TW), Flash Forward Entertainment (TW).
Script: Zhao Deyin [Midi Z]. Photography: Fan Shengxiang. Editing: Lin Shengwen, Zhao Deyin [Midi Z]. Music: Sonic Dead Horse. Art direction: Zhao Zhitang. Costumes: Dan Ka Ming Lwin. Sound: Zhou Zhen.
Cast: Wu Kexi (Sanmei), Wang Xinghong (moped driver), Zhou Caichang (moped driver’s father), Yang Shulan (Sanmei’s mother), Li Shangda (moped driver’s uncle).
Premiere: Berlin Film Festival (Panorama), 8 Feb 2014.
Release: Taiwan, 18 Jul 2014.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 9 Feb 2014.)