Break through the Darkness

扫黑  决战

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 111 mins.

Director: Lv Yulai 吕聿来.

Rating: 7/10.

Moodily shot anti-corruption drama with offbeat moments and a standout performance by Jiang Wu.

STORY

Jiangzhou municipality, southern China, the present day. On 26 Jun, in Zhaojia [Zhao family] village, Weihe county, veteran farmer Luo (Qian Bo) leads a protest against forcible land requisition organised by Zhao Tianlu (Jia Fengzhu) and his son Zhao Yong (Jiang Xueming). Luo tries to set fire to himself and in the struggle with the Zhaos’ men he dies. At Luo’s funeral, his son gets into a fight with the arrogant Zhao Yong. The land requisition programme is part of a major development zone project that will transform the county. The provincial government receives a letter of complaint and, as part of the nationwide crackdown on corruption – dubbed 扫黑除恶 (“Sweep out darkness, eradicate evil”) – provincial anti-corruption director Xia (You Yongzhi) is instructed to deal with what looks like gang-related activity. He appoints veteran detective Song Yirui (Jiang Wu) to investigate, with a team of three others: Zheng (Jiao Gang) and the younger Fang Zhou (Xu Kelong) and Zhou Quan (Zhang Kangle). Weihe county commissioner Cao Zhiyuan (Zhang Songwen) surprises everyone by calling a complete halt to all work on the development zone, vowing personally to uproot any corruption. He later entertains Song Yirui to dinner at his home. As they investigate, Song Yirui and his team discover their office has been bugged, so they move elsewhere. They also find that Zhao Tianlu is the village’s Party rep and his gangster son is officially in charge of public security but does a useless job. Song Yirui orders them brought in for questioning. As well as being a Party member, Zhao Yong also works for his family’s company that has been involved in requisitioning land and property for the development scheme. He insists that Luo’s death was Luo’s own fault, but he confirms that his family’s company is actually owned by the large Hongyuan Group, run by the dissolute Sun Zhibiao (Jin Shijia), 32. Song Yirui suspects there are others behind Zhao Tianlu, maybe even people in government. He and his team discover a web of interconnected companies with strong government connections, as the new development zone is a key project for Weihe county. Song Yirui then discovers some construction workers for Binhe Group – run by Lin Qiao’er (Li Qian), 38 – have stopped work after having been unpaid for months. The labour contractor who hired them, Liu Lijun (Zhao Yi), has disappeared, though the the lack of wages is thought to to be the fault of Binhe Group, not Liu Lijun. In fact, Liu Lijun is being held and tortured by Zhao Yong and his men about the missing money; but as Song Yirui and his team search for Liu Lijun, Zhao Yong receives a tip-off from a mole. Examination of earlier land plans for the development zone point the finger at the Zhaos for forcible land requisition; when confronted by the evidence, they finger Qi Feiyu, a government bureau chief, who then goes missing after eating late at the office with Cao Zhiyuan. Next morning he appears to commit suicide right outside Song Yirui’s window, and RMB5 million in cash is discovered in his office. After a pause, Song Yirui gets permission to carry on with the investigation, and then the body of Yang Rui (Fan Shiran), a young woman who worked for Binhe Group, is discovered. Song Yirui and his team finally track down the frightened Liu Lijun and convince him to talk, offering him protection. Liu Lijun points the blame at Sun Zhibiao, whose headquarters, full of hired girls, Song Yirui raids one evening. But arresting Sun Zhibiao, who is protected by someone much higher, proves more difficult for Song Yirui and his team.

REVIEW

Billing itself as the Mainland’s first authentic anti-corruption movie – hardly true, as that’s been a whole genre of its own since 1949 – Break through the Darkness 扫黑  决战 is an offbeat procedural thriller that becomes more conventional as it goes on but is well worth a look for a superbly grizzled performance by Jiang Wu 姜武, 53, as the bespectacled taskforce head who won’t stop until he gets his man. The second directorial outing of Mainland actor Lv Yulai 吕聿来, 39, following his romantic drama My Town 桃源 (2018, aka Life of Zhang Chu), it’s a interesting spin on generic material that’s managed a decent showing in its first two weeks of over RMB280 million at the May holiday box office, narrowly beating the much flashier, star-laden anti-corruption drama Once upon a Time in Hong Kong 金钱帝国  追虎擒龙 (2021) from across the border. [Final tally for Darkness was RMB405 million; that for Once upon a Time was RMB244 million.]

Though it screened at the Pingyao festival in Oct 2018, My Town has yet to be commercially released in the Mainland, so Darkness is effectively Lv’s public debut as a director. However, he’s best known as a boyish-looking actor in TV drama and, especially, indie/festival-friendly productions, like the best pal in Beijing Flickers 有种 (2012) or the lead character in Trap Street 水印街 (2013). On Darkness, he has Taiwan’s experienced Huang Zhiming 黄志明 (Cape No. 7 海角七号, 2008; Warriors of the Rainbow 赛德克•巴莱, 2011; Kano Kano, 2014; Somewhere Winter 大约在冬季, 2019) as creative producer 监制, and the result is a confidant, noirish drama with its own flavour after a highly generic start.

Given the film’s Chinese title (which uses the political slogan săohēi 扫黑, literally “sweeping out darkness”) and an English title that recalls those for oldstyle potboilers like Breaking through the Darkness before the Dawn 冲破黎明前的黑暗 (1956) or Breaking with Old Ideas 决裂 (1975), the omens are not very good at the start, with corny scenes of local thugs bullying an old farmer for his land and then a provincial government meeting which delegates an anti-corruption bureaucrat (stalwart veteran You Yongzhi 尤勇智, better known as You Yong 尤勇) to look into a letter of complaint about the incident. Things gradually improve as a small team under chuckling veteran detective Song Yirui (Jiang) is assembled and local county commissioner Cao Zhiyuan (Zhang Songwen 张颂文) vows to help him uproot any corruption or criminal wrongdoing. But the real drama starts when (a) the team discovers its office has been bugged and (b) it starts ruffling feathers by hauling in officials for questioning.

The film’s poster gives the whole game away by presenting it as a duel between Song Yirui and Cao Zhiyuan, so there’s no real surprise when the latter is eventually exposed as a corrupt Party official. The main drama comes from how Song Yirui gets to that point, from early suspicions that government officials are involved in the shady land-requisitioning via their links with big business to actually proving said suspicions. After a densely plotted first half-hour, the point of no return is reached when one official supposedly commits suicide – in a strikingly cinematic way – and Song Yirui realises the gloves are off. Thereafter, the film settles down into a more conventional drama of goodies and baddies, with a dissolute company head who thinks he’s untouchable, a labour contractor who finally helps Song Yirui at risk of his life, and so on.

However, it still makes involving cinema, not least because of Jiang’s performance as the unbowed investigator who’s seen all the tricks before and knows exactly what he’s getting into, and the moody photography by Hong Kong d.p. Yu Guangwei 于光维 (Taiwan mystery-drama Partners in Crime 共犯, 2014; Mainland cancer movie Let Life Be Beautiful 再见吧！少年, 2020) that conjures up a brooding sense of nefariousness through which the team is wading to reach daylight. A masterclass in minimalist acting, Jiang’s performance is up there with his best (the gruff miner in A Touch of Sin 天注定, 2013; villain in Wrath of Silence 暴烈无声, 2017; frightened old warrior in The Eight Hundred 八佰, 2020) and is all the better for its restraint, punctuated by occasional violent shows of frustration. A dramatic weakness of the film is that it never really develops into a sustained duel between the two leads: Zhang, 45, a character actor often seen in comic roles (Love in the Office 一路向前, 2015; The Big Lie Bang 谎言大爆炸, 2016), is well cast as the corrupt cadre who really believes he’s above the law but is given fewer chances than Jiang to build a sustained role.

As the dissolute young head of a company mired in corruption, Shanghai swimmer-turned-actor Jin Shijia 金世佳 (the boyfriend in Didi’s Dreams “吃吃地”的爱, 2017) chews the scenery in the film’s flashiest role, while actress Li Qian 李倩 (largely in TV but very good as the wife in Someone to Talk To 一句顶一万句, 2016) has some quieter moments as the executive of a construction group. Other roles are all fine, especially Zhao Yi 赵毅 as the frightened labour contractor and Jiang Xueming 蒋雪鸣 as the village head’s arrogant son.

The film’s Chinese title means “Sweeping Out Darkness: The Showdown”. Made for theatrical release by streaming giant iQiyi, Darkness was shot during Aug-Oct 2020 around Huizhou city, Guangdong province, southern China. It was originally to have been released on 15 Jan 2021 before being moved to the May Day holiday.

CREDITS

Presented by iQiyi Pictures (Shanghai) (CN).

Script: Fan Jing, Jiang Lihua, Lv Yulai, Yue Xiaojun. Photography: Yu Guangwei. Editing: Kuang Zhiliang. Music: Luo Kun, Zhong Zonghao. Art direction: Fu Yingzhang. Sound: Tu Hao. Visual effects: Zhang Wei.

Cast: Jiang Wu (Song Yirui), Zhang Songwen (Cao Zhiyuan, Weihe county commissioner), Jin Shijia (Sun Zhibiao, Hongyuan Group head), Li Qian (Lin Qiao’er, Binhe Group head), Zhao Yi (Liu Lijun, labour contractor), Jiao Gang (Zheng, Song Yirui’s senior team member), You Yongzhi [You Yong] (Xia, provincial anti-corruption director), Liu Lin (Qi Feiyu’s wife), Bao Zhidi (Cao Shunhua), Wang Liyun (Luo’s wife), Qian Bo (Luo, veteran farmer), Jiang Xueming (Zhao Yong, Zhao Tianlu’s son), Wang Jiajia (Liu Lijun’s wife), Dong Borui (Wei Dayong), Xu Kelong (Fang Zhou, Song Yirui’s team member), Zhang Kangle (Zhou Quan, Song Yirui’s team member), Aruna (Luo Zili), Chen Jin (Qi Feiyu, bureau head), Zong Juntao (Fan Jian), Tu Shengcheng (man with glasses), Wang Haocheng (Dong, secretary), Wu Shuang (Du Juan), Fan Shiran (Yang Rui, murdered Binhe Group employee), Liu Junqi (worker), Qin Hai (Zhang Jie), Qian Yi (elderly victim), Zhang Tianshu (Chen, team leader), Wang Xinjia (Wang Jinpei, deputy secretary to Cao Zhiyuan), Jia Fengzhu (Zhao Tianlu), Wang Ruoxi (elderly victim’s daughter), Gu Yuhan (Cao Wanwan), Wang Feng (head policeman), Wang Jianlong (disciplinary committee leader), Zhang Haiyi (Lin Qiao’er’s secretary), Wang Jingyu (SWAT leader).

Release: China, 1 May 2021.