Our Forty Years

我们的四十年

China, 2019, colour/b&w, 16:9, 94 mins.

Directors: Li Yixiang 李易祥 (I), Bao Zhenjiang 鲍振江 (I), Li Zhenwei 李真伟 (II), Huo Meng 霍猛 (III).

Rating: 5/10.

Portmanteau movie by four film-makers from Henan province gets better as it goes along.

STORY

Henan province, central-northern China, the present day. I: Bao Longtu 包龙图. In order to shoot a docmentary on Henan culture, actor Bao Zhenjiang is advised by his friend, fellow actor Li Yixiang, to come to the historic city of Kaifeng, where they were both opera students in the early 1980s and where Feng Jikai still performs for tourists, especially the role of Song dynasty judge Bao Longtu, a popular figure in classical Chinese crime fiction. Li Yixiang and Feng Jikai reminisce about the old days and, as Li Yixiang roams the school’s empty building, he remembers his student days there before, after graduating in 1984, everyone went their separate ways. II: Father and Son in Luo City 洛城父子. In the historic city of Luoyang, in a street marked for redevelopment, widower Chen Dashan (Li Haichao) runs a small restaurant specialising in beef and beancurd soups from a traditional family recipe. He’s helped by his sister-in-law (Qin Congxia) and most of the small number of customers are either neighbours or old friends. One day Chen Dashan collapses from hypertension but recovers; on the same day his grown son, Chen Qingfeng (Zheng Yalong), suddenly arrives after disappearing for three years without explanation. He’s come back just to tend the grave of his late mother, for whose accidental death he still blames his father, with whom he hardly talks. He re-meets Tongtong (Chen Lin), the girl he ditched, and she says she’s about to leave for Canada to get married. But she urges him to make up with his father. Chen Qingfeng modernises the restaurant and business booms, but tensions still remain between the two men. III: Zhengzhou Love Story 郑州爱情故事. In Sep 2018, due to Typhoon Shanju down south in Guangdong province, planning designer Zhang Ming (Song Xiaochun), 30, is stranded in Henan’s provincial capital, Zhengzhou, unable to get back to Guangzhou city. He takes a taxi from Zhengzhou East railway station into the capital but the driver, young mother Ding Ling (Wang Mengyao), is suddenly called to hospital by an emergency with her son Haohao (Xu Zi’en). When checking into a hotel, Zhang Ming finds he’s left his ID card in the taxi and ends up going to the hospital to collect it. There he bonds with Haohao, whose father is permanently away on work, and the three of them end up having a late dinner together, during which Zhang Ming has a few drinks. On the way back, Zhang Ming drives so that Ding Ling can look after the tired Haohao; but the car is pulled over by traffic police conducting random breath tests. Ding Ling recognises one of them, Lingzi (Ma Zhe), and they agree to drive her home. From Lingzi, Zhang Ming subsequently hears Ding Ling’s full story.

REVIEW

The best is saved for last in Our Forty Years 我们的四十年, a collection of three half-hour stories by mostly first-time directors from Henan, each set in one of the province’s major centres (historic Kaifeng and Luoyang, plus capital Zhengzhou). Produced by Henan-born character actor/comedian Li Yixiang 李易祥, 46 – who played the chief scammer in Blind Shaft 盲井 (2003) and the hapless lead in black comedy Lost and Found 我叫刘跃进 (2008) – it’s been trumpeted as a rallying cry for a province that hasn’t contributed that many film-makers to the national mix. In the event, it’s a largely OK portmanteau movie that starts weakly, with a discursive, unfocused, quasi-documentary centred on Kaifeng’s opera school; gets on track with a central episode centred on a father and dysfunctional son in the backstreets of Luoyang; and concludes with a genuinely striking vignette of a maybe-love story in Zhengzhou.

The opening segment, Bao Longtu 包龙图, whose direction is credited to both Li, 46, and fellow actor Bao Zhenjiang 鲍振江 (old friends who also play themselves, despite being too young), seems much longer than its actual half-hour and, with its quasi-documentary approach and confusing exposition, makes a poor introduction to the whole film. For anyone still left in the audience, the second episode, Father and Son in Luo City 洛城父子, delicately directed and unfussily shot by Li Zhenwei 李真伟, at least makes it clear it’s a fictional short story, focused on a widowed backstreet restaurateur whose son suddenly reappears after three years and gradually re-establishes some kind of rapport with his father. Li Haichao 李海超 nicely underplays the tolerant but ailing father but Zheng Yalong 郑亚龙 (A Little Stone Goes Down to the Countryside 小石头下乡记, 2019) is a dull enigma as his moody son.

It’s the final segment, Zhengzhou Love Story 郑州爱情故事, that’s the pearl in this particular crown – a perfectly realised short story about a young designer, stranded in the provincial capital due to a typhoon down south, who rapidly becomes friends (and maybe more in the future) with a single-mother taxi driver and her young son. Charmingly played by its two leads Song Xiaochun 宋小春 and Wang Mengyao 王梦瑶, it’s cleverly constructed within the limits of a short vignette and consistently hints at more than it ever expresses. No surprise then, that it comes from a writer-director, 35-year-old Huo Meng 霍猛, who’s already established himself with two features, the likeable light comedy My Best Friends 我的狐朋狗友 (2016) and rural two-hander Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan 过昭关 (2018), a road movie which showcased chunks of Henan.

The film recycles the Chinese title of a 2018 TV drama series, known in English as Forty Years We Walked, with which it has no connection in any way. It’s a strange choice, as the use of “forty years” implies a look back at how the country has changed since the start of economic reforms in 1978; but apart from the opening episode, there’s no flashback material at all.

CREDITS

Presented by Zhengzhou Evening News (CN), Henan Meimeng Chengzhen Film & TV Production (CN). Produced by Henan Meimeng Chengzhen Film & TV Production (CN).

Script: Bao Zhenjiang (I); Guo Zhuang (II); Huo Meng (III). Photography: Wang Bingkuan (I); Li Zhenwei, Zou Dexin (II); Sun Guanyu (III). Editing: Bao Zhenjiang, Qi Yang (I); Dai Zong, Li Ming (II); Wang Xiaohang (III). Music: Li Rui, Bai He. Art direction: Li Xinyuan (I); Hou Congping (II, III). Costumes: Zhang Juanjuan, Qiao Ya (II). Sound: Li Ran (I); Liu Shipeng (II, III). Executive direction: Zhang Guangjie (I); Ding Yi (II); Xia Jiao (III).

Cast: I: Bao Zhenjiang, Li Yixiang, Feng Jikai, Jin Hong, Shi Xiaojie (themselves), Fan Zheng (Yuan Huiqin), Liu Bing, Shen Zhixing (themselves); II: Li Haichao (Chen Dashan), Zheng Yalong (Chen Qingfeng), Qin Congxia (Li, Chen Dashan’s sister-in-law), Zhang Yuchuan (Si Ge/Brother Four), Chen Lin (Tongtong, Chen Qingfeng’s ex-girlfriend), Bao Zhenjiang (photographer); III: Song Xiaochun (Zhang Ming), Wang Mengyao (Ding Ling), Xu Zi’en (Haohao, Ding Ling’s young son), Ma Zhe (Liangzi, traffic policeman), Li Yixiang (man on phone at station), Liu Aiguo (Liangzi’s colleague), Yang Yuwei (hospital nurse).

Release: China, 16 Aug 2019.