Warriors of Honor

我为你牺牲

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 108 mins.

Director: An Zhanjun 安战军.

Rating: 4/10.

Gung-ho celebration of China’s paramilitary Armed Police Force via three interwoven personal stories.

STORY

Yunnan province, southern China, the rescent past. A military brigade of the Yunnan Armed Police Corps, including bomb disposal specialist Wang Qiang (Li Qi), captain of a special combat squad, is flown in on a raid and loses five of its men. The operation was, however, just an exercise. In Qinghai province, west central China, in the desert at well over 4,000 metres altitude, a Qinghai Armed Police Corps truck stops to rescue a backpacker who’s fallen over a cliff. On the truck is Zhuang Xiaohong (Chen Shu), wife of Yang Guofu (Guo Yongzhen), an officer in the squad guarding the tunnel entrance of the all-important Qinghai-Tibet railway in the Kunlun mountains. After two years the couple still have no children, and their marriage is under strain with his long absences, so he has invited her to see how demanding his job is. In Xinjiang, northwest China, the Xinjiang branch of the Shanghai Armed Police Corps is helping local people during some floods. One young soldier, Li Baoguo (Wei Peng), heroically rescues a Uyghur girl, Ayisha (Fei Ruozi), who later forms a friendship with him. Meanwhile, Wang Qiang’s squad is assigned to help the police in an anti-drugs operation, and he himself takes down an armed criminal (Song Chuyan) who is holding a woman hostage on top of a building. In Xining, Qinghai’s provincial capital, Zhuang Xiaohong is injured in a traffic accident and needs to have her lower leg amputated. She refuses to have an anaesthetic in case it affects her chances of getting pregnant; she also wants to show she can match her husband’s fortitude. In hospital, recovering from the anti-narcotics operation, Wang Qiang takes a liking to a nurse, Zhang Lan (Deng Chengzi). When Li Baoguo returns to Shanghai, Ayisha is upset to lose him. Some time later, Yang Guofu and Zhuang Xiaohong have a young son but the strain of raising him is too much for Zhuang Xiaohong, who proposes divorce to free Yang Guofu of the need to look after her. Shocked, he refuses, and proposes a family holiday by the sea in Pingtan, Fujian province. In Shanghai, Li Baoguo discovers he has cancer and requests a transfer back to Xinjiang so he can see Ayisha again. Meanwhile, Wang Qiang leads an assault against some drug-dealers in southern Yunnan.

REVIEW

One of a slew of movies released in late 2019 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the PRC, Warriors of Honor 我为你牺牲 is among the least inflected of the batch, a gung-ho celebration of the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force 中国人民武装警察部队, aka PAP 武警, a paramilitary organisation somewhere between the PLA and the regular police that deals with emergency situations requiring extra muscle. Directed by prolific veteran An Zhanjun 安战军, best known for the ensemble portraits of backstreet Beijing life like The Parking Attendant in July 看车人的七月 (2003), Hutong Days 胡同里的阳光 (2008) and Glittering Days 万家灯火 (2009) that he directs between regulation military dramas, it showcases aspects of the PAP’s selfless work (the Chinese title translates as “I Sacrifice Myself for You”) via three interwoven stories based on real people. Box office was a respectable RMB248 million.

An usually delivers a good-looking, quality production, even when working with unfamiliar material (such as A Young Girl’s Destiny 逆袭, 2013, centred on a wannabe in Beijing’s TV world), but there’s not much he can do with the simplistic script by Qin Tian 秦天, 62, a PAP deputy commander, which simply cross-cuts between the various stories (set in Yunnan, Qinghai and Xinjiang provinces) without building much involving emotion. The best story is a simple friendship between a young squaddie (theatre actor Wei Peng 魏鹏) and a Uyghur girl he rescues from some floods; the other two, interlarded with stirringly-scored training sessions and montages, are more routine, iron-jawed stuff. One sequence, in which a captain’s wife refuses any anaesthetic during a leg amputation, seems melodramatic, though is in fact based on a true event. (The real-life characters of all stories are introduced in documentary footage at the end.)

Dramatically, it’s all a notch or so down on, say, An’s period PLA drama Through Stunning Storms 惊沙 (2011), though the mounting is technically very good, led by the widescreen landscapes of d.p. Zheng Zhong 郑钟, shot in some of China’s most inhospitable locations. The copious music by Feng Da 冯达 (period caper movie Scheme with Me 双城计中计, 2012) is better in gentler moments than in the heroic ones  accompanied by male choirs.

CREDITS

Presented by Hubei Yangtze River Film Group (CN), Tencent Pictures (CN), Foshan Ruidong Culture Media (CN), Xi’an Asia Production & Distribution (CN), Pingtan Haiying Tianlan Film Media (CN), China Movie Channel (CN), Hubei Film Production (CN), Hubei Radio & TV Station (CN), Changjiang Publishing & Media (CN), Beijing Asia Production & Distribution (CN), Beijing Zhongxing Huacai Cinema Line (CN), Foshan Tianxiang Film (CN). Produced by the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force’s Political Work Department (CN), CPC Hubei Provincial Committee’s Publicity Department (CN), CPC Shaanxi Provincial Committee’s Publicity Department (CN), CPC Fujian Provincial Committee’s Publicity Department (CN).

Script: Qin Tian. Photography: Zheng Zhong. Editing: Wang Yongjie. Music: Feng Da. Songs: Qin Tian, Wu Ding. Art direction: Yang Baocheng, Wu Guangyong. Sound: Wang Lewen, Zhou Baojian. Action: Rao Fang. Visual effects: Wan Ning. Executive direction: Fan Yipeng.

Cast: Li Qi (Wang Qiang), Guo Yongzhen (Yang Guofu), Chen Shu (Zhuang Xiaohong), Wei Peng (Li Baoguo), You Yong (commander), Lin Jiangguo (detachment leader), Song Chuyan (armed criminal), Li Junfeng (drug dealer), Wei Zihan (young Li Baoguo), Fei Ruozi (Ayisha), Rezhati (Kelimu), Deng Chengzi (Zhang Lan), Wang Jianguo (Yang Guofu’s father), Silamu Mamuti (uncle), Fan Liang (Wang Dawei), Zheng Yayun (female backpacker), Zheng Minglan, Li Gaokuan.

Premiere: Chinese American Film Festival, California, Nov 2019.

Release: China, 5 Dec 2019.