Skyfire

天•火

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D, 97 mins.

Director: Simon West.

Rating: 6/10.

Trashily enjoyable slice of escapist pulp cinema set on an erupting volcanic island.

STORY

Tianhuo, an island somewhere off the coast of China, 20 years ago. With almost no warning, the volcano on the island suddenly erupts while a scientific team, led by Li Wentao (Wang Xueqi), is conducting experiments. Li Wentao’s American wife (Alice Rietveld) dies before his eyes, though his young daughter Li Xiaomeng (Beeland Rogers) survives. Twenty years later Tianhuo is now a theme park for thrill-seeking tourists, developed by Australian businessman Jack Harris (Jason Isaacs) and his Chinese wife Qianwei (Ma Xinmo), and designed by Dong Jiahui (Bai An). Li Xiaomeng (Kun Ling) is a member of a scientific team monitoring the volcano’s activity via the elaborate Zhuque 朱雀 system; she herself puts in place the last of the almost 1,000 sensors buried deep in the mountain around the volcano’s lava chamber. A university lecturer on the mainland, Li Wentao opposes his daughter being on Tianhuo, as he senses the volcano is about to erupt again. Li Xiaomeng also suspects it but Zhu Que’s data hasn’t yet indicated anything definite. When Jack Harris flies in to announce the start of Phase 2 of the resort’s development, Li Xiaomeng confronts him over the possible risk but he shrugs her off, saying he’s been assured the volcano won’t erupt for another 150 years. Jack Harris is in financial difficulties, so Phase 2 must succeed to get him out of debt. Li Wentao suddenly arrives on the island to take his daughter off; when she refuses, he accompanies her and team leader Jiang (Shi Liang) in a helicopter to the crater’s edge for research. At the same time, a group of investors and tourists is taken by Qianwei in the monorail to The Bubble observation deck, also on the crater’s edge. Meanwhile, Zhengnan (Dou Xiao), another member of the scientific team, is having some R&R with Dong Jiahui in a mountain pool, where he proposes to her underwater. Then suddenly the volcano erupts.

REVIEW

Connoisseurs of lean, muscular pulp cinema will get a buzz from Skyfire 天•火, a trashily enjoyable slice of escapism that knows exactly what it is and doesn’t pretend otherwise. Harking back to disaster movies of the 1960s/70s, except that this time the volcano is somewhere off the coast of China, it’s directed by UK-born, US-based veteran Simon West, 58, who knows a thing or two about pulp action (Con Air, 1997; Lara Croft Tomb Raider, 2001; The Expendables 2, 2012) but here dials down the Hollywood self-importance without letting the characters be overwhelmed by the VFX. Financed by Mainland companies and featuring a largely Chinese cast, but shot in Malaysia with a largely western key crew, it’s one of the smoother meldings of Asian and western talent but hasn’t clicked with Mainland audiences in a major way, taking only a so-so RMB160 million in its first 10 days.

After a brief prelude that sets up (a) Tianhuo’s last eruption and (b) the heroine’s background, the script – by first-timer Bu Wei 卜维 and US writer-director Sidney King (rural drama Pearl Diver, 2005) – gets down to business 20 years later as the little island has now been turned into a “must-see destination for the selfie generation” by indebted developer Jack Harris (UK actor Jason Isaacs with an Australian accent) who assures everyone there won’t be another eruption for 150 years. However, a team of Chinese scientists that’s installing sensors around the volcano isn’t so sure – especially go-getting young volcanologist Li Xiaomeng (Kun Ling 昆凌), whose mother died in the previous eruption. She doesn’t take no for an answer, even from her university professor father (Wang Xueqi 王学圻) when he suddenly turns up on the island to take her off.

After the simmering half-hour setup, it’s action all the way as various tourists, investors and scientists are trapped on top of the volcano, the leads manage to get halfway down, and then the island’s town is threatened by a lava flow. In true pulp style, the script gives just enough information about all the main characters, as well as briefly ticking all the disaster-movie boxes – Man’s arrogance, science’s weakness, nature’s dominance – without getting preachy. The physical action has a take-no-prisoners energy and cheekiness (jumping between plummeting monorails, etc.) that are simply great fun. VFX have a retro feel that’s also invigorating, underlining the fact that CG “realism” isn’t everything.

It’s the biggest role yet for Taiwan-born Australian-Chinese-Korean actress Kun Ling 昆凌, aka Hannah Quinlivan, 26, who played the spunky/punky team member in lame Shanghai action thriller S.M.A.R.T. Chase 极致追击 (2017) alongside the UK’s Orlando Bloom. Whether zooming around on her motorbike or kicking down doors, she creates a strong screen presence as the obsessive, tomboyish daughter still haunted by her American mum’s death, even though the script dumps her as another whiny millennial by the end. Mainland-born, Vancouver-raised Dou Xiao 窦骁 [Shawn Dou], 31, is on hand for the more manly stuff, though his character of a fellow team-member romancing the resort’s designer almost seems like an afterthought. Dominating the movie with his minimalist but powerful style is Mainland veteran Wang, who anchors the film with just enough real emotion without holding things up and, at the age of 73, still manages to look convincing on a speeding bike in front of a green screen.

Technical credits are all solid, with US editor Paul Martin Smith (Behind Enemy Lines, 2001) bringing the whole thing in at a whiplash 90-minutes or so and Turkish-born composer Pınar Toprak (Captain Marvel, 2019) providing a suitably broad, heroic (if themeless) score than can heard above the sound effects. For the record, though the film is directed by West, the last name to appear in the opening credits is not his but that of supervising producer Dong Wenjie 董文洁, CEO/founder of Beijing-based Meridian Entertainment, who obviously considers the film her personal project.

CREDITS

Presented by Qingchun Weilai Film & TV (Foshan) (CN), Meridian Entertainment (Beijing) (CN), SHIVC (CN), Peishi Film & TV Group (CN), Beijing United Entertainment Partners Culture & Media (CN). Produced by Meridian Entertainment (Beijing) (CN).

Script: Bu Wei, Sidney King. Photography: Alan Caudillo. Editing: Paul Martin Smith. Music: Pınar Toprak. Production design: Paul Kirby. Art direction: David Ingram. Costume design: Vera Chow. Action: Martin De Boer, Noon Orsatti. Special effects: Mark Meddings. Visual effects: Sylvan Dieckmann, Justin Jones, Bob Mercier, David Stump, Mark Cameron Williams (Base FX, Tau Films).

Cast: Wang Xueqi (Li Wentao), Kun Ling [Hannah Quinlivan] (Li Xiaomeng), Dou Xiao [Shawn Dou] (Zhengnan), Jason Isaacs (Jack Harris), Bai An (Dong Jiahui), Ma Xinmo (Qianwei, Jack Harris’ wife), Ji Lingchen (Teng Bo), Beeland Rogers (young Li Xiaomeng), Li Yiqing (Shanshan), Shi Liang (Jiang, professor), Wu Hanjun (Xu Lei), Hou Tongjiang (Dong Jiahui’s grandfather), Alice Rietveld (Sue Miller, Li Xiaomeng’s mother), Chen Yiqi (Jack Harris’ secretary).

Release: China, 12 Dec 2019.