She Is in Danger
封口者
China, 2020, colour, 2.35:1, 94 mins.
Director: Cai Ming 蔡明.
Rating: 4/10.
Mystery-thriller has the kernel of an interesting idea but needs a rewrite, a bigger budget and a remake.
STORY
Shenshan, somewhere in southern China, the present day, summer. After a row with her boyfriend Wang Jun (Zhang Wei), 26-year-old Luo Xue (An Ning) has rented a house in a mountain village to sort herself out. Also renting the place is another young woman, Yiyi (Pei Yutong), a painter, who is not very friendly. The next day Luo Xue is visited by Su Wen (Zuo Yi), a male friend from junior high school who is now a PhD student. Su Wen becomes spooked by the whole house and Yiyi’s weird behaviour, and leaves the next day. That evening, Lei Song (Ma Han), who says he is Yiyi’s boyfriend from their hometown, appears, and Luo Xue is put out by his menacing behaviour. (Three days earlier, Yiyi had received a call from her wealthy boyfriend Gao Bo [Zhang Bin] that he was on his way to see her. In the meantime, Luo Xue arrived. While Luo Xue was out shopping, Gao Bo had arrived and politely ditched Yiyi, who had accidentally pushed him off the roof of the building where they were talking. Panicking, Yiyi had called Lei Song, who had hidden the body in the house. Lei Song himself also hid in the house and both he and Yiyi had closely watched Luo Xue to make sure she didn’t call anybody after she told Yiyi she’d seen Gao Bo arriving. When Su Wen had turned up, Yiyi had deliberately acted weird to spook him out. Next day, after Su Wen had left, Lei Song had buried Gao Bo’s body in the woods, and later confessed his love to Yiyi. She hadn’t responded, and he had thought she despised him because he wasn’t rich like Gao Bo was.) Yiyi thinks that Luo Xue suspects something, so Lei Song ties her up in a room. But then Su Wen returns unexpectedly, looking for her.
REVIEW
With a couple of rewrites, a more experienced cast and a bigger budget, She Is in Danger 封口者 could be an intriguing mystery-thriller, as there are some interesting ideas scattered through its script. As it stands, it only barely cuts the mustard, though beneath the simplicity of its plot – two friends try to hush up an accidental death from two other visitors in a mountain village – its underlying potential can still be seen. Misleadingly marketed as a ghost/horror movie, this first theatrical feature by Hubei-born film-maker Cai Ming 蔡明 – following some shorts and a couple of online movies (rom-com The Unspoken Secrets 不可言说之手机的秘密, 2017; time-travel fantasy Begin Again 回到过去未成年, 2020, co-dir. Wang Chuan 王川) – took RMB2.3 million on release at the end of last year, about average for a production of this kind.
The film starts like a routine ghost movie, as a young guy visits an old schoolfriend who’s fled to the mountains after a row with her boyfriend; there he spends a creepy night with her and her weird female housemate before leaving the next day. The film’s trailer is entirely composed of material from this opening 20 minutes; thereon, however, a flashback explains what’s really going on and the rest of the film develops into a slightly offbeat tale of unrequited love between two mismatched pairs, against a background of a hushed-up case of manslaughter. Cai sometimes pushes his young cast to their limits with long close-ups, and sometimes succeeds. In general, however, performances are just functional, with actresses An Ning 安宁 (Unspoken Secrets) and Pei Zhengzheng 裴筝筝 (Begin Again) – the latter billed as Pei Yutong 裴雨桐 – okay as the bubbly one and the heartbroken one, and baby-faced Zuo Yi 左溢 and sinister Ma Han 马翰 more enigmatic as their lovelorn male pals.
Camerawork by d.p. Da Bo 大博 is largely handheld, with no special signature; music by Hao Yigang 郝一钢 is over-dominant. One scene halfway through, featuring some toe-curlingly awful English dialogue, would best be trimmed.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Xingkuo Media Culture (CN), Beijing Yihe Yinghua Culture Media (CN), Beijing Progress Bar Film & TV Media (CN). Produced by Beijing Yihe Yinghua Culture Media (CN), Beijing Xingkuo Media Culture (CN).
Script: Cai Ming. Photography: Da Bo. Editing: Huang Lingxian. Music: Hao Yiguang. Art direction: Shao Jianhao. Styling: Zhang Xinping, Wang Linting. Sound: Wen Jun, Zhang Di. Executive direction: Chen Yan.
Cast: An Ning (Luo Xue), Zuo Yi (Su Wen), Pei Yutong [Pei Zhengzheng] (Yiyi), Ma Han (Lei Song), Zhang Bin (Gao Bo), Zhang Wei (Wang Jun), Huang Xiaohui (Alice), Che Luping (hospital nurse), Guo Kai (hospital patient), Wu Lixia (hospital patient’s relative), Li Muyao (Luo Xue’s female friend).
Release: China, 24 Dec 2020.