The Perfect Victim

完美受害人

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 101 mins.

Director: Yang Longjie 杨泷杰.

Rating: 5/10.

Interesting police procedural is a mix of familiar and fresh elements, but doesn’t play fair with its audience.

STORY

Binlong city, somewhere in northern China, Oct 2020. During a police interrogation on a murder case, a suspect (Guo Liang) takes on the personality of his bullying “elder brother” (Guo Yang) who is supposedly the murderer and knows where the body is hidden. Afterwards, the consultant psychologist on the case, Liu Wenjia (Zhang Junning), tells chief detective Jiang Feng (Li Naiwen) that the man is suffering from classic multiple-personality disorder. When the body of a young painter, Jiang Wendi (Liu Fanfei), is found hanging in her home, the police initially suspect suicide; but Jiang Feng wonders why the victim had just ordered a delivery of snacks and why the knot on the cord around her neck was a left-handed one when the victim was right-handed. He suspects a carefully planned murder. At the clinic where he works, Liu Wenjia’s patients include Xin Qi (Feng Wenjuan), a divorced modern dancer with a young daughter, Doudou (Jia Xinyun); she’s being treated for sleeplessness and nightmares, though she keeps forgetting to take the pills he prescribes. Another problem for Liu Wenjia is Guan Yong (Lu Zhanxiang), a young teenager with a bullying father (Zhang Lei) who was responsible for the death of his mother (Zhao Ziqi). The police narrow down the suspects in Jiang Wendi’s murder to four men in her social circle, including photographer Wang Bin (He Zhipeng) and well-known painter Zhou Yan (Tan Kai). (Zhou Yan had once been married to Xin Qi. He had experienced severe mood changes, hitting her around and accusing her of being unfaithful. Afterwards, he would always offer a grovelling apology. It is for those memories that Xin Qi is being treated by Liu Wenjia.) Another woman, Qiu Wei (Liu Yanxi), is found strangled, and the police suspect a link. When they hear that Wang Bin is about to fly to Macau, they bring him in for questioning but learn little. The police question Zhou Yan, who was Qiu Wei’s business partner, and he admits that they fell out when she withdrew funding from him. Jiang Feng questions Xin Qi, as she knew both the dead women, but she is reluctant to comment and also refuses to explain why she and Zhou Yan divorced, saying only that he went too far when she was pregnant. After apparently losing Doudou in the street after collecting her from school, Xin Qi goes to Zhou Yan’s flat and accuses him of hiding the girl there, though he strongly denies it. Soon afterwards, the police hear that Zhou Yan has apparently committed suicide by jumping from his flat’s balcony.

REVIEW

A police procedural in which the viewer is put in the place of the chief detective as he picks his way through a seemingly insoluble case, The Perfect Victim 完美受害人 is a smoothly packaged and generally well-played whodunit that gains much from the lead performance of Mainland actor Li Naiwen 李乃文 as the cynical cop. It’s the first theatrical feature by 30-something, Beijing-born director Yang Longjie 杨泷杰, who joined the performance course of Beijing Film Academy in 2005 and subsequently worked on half-a-dozen or so TV/online features as creative producer. Shot in Tianjin in autumn 2019, it took only a meh RMB13 million during this year’s sluggish summer box office but, despite its flaws, remains an interesting calling card for Yang as a theatrical feature director.

The script, by first-timer Fu Mengran 付梦然, plus Zhao Dawei 赵大卫 and Yang, is reportedly based on a true story of domestic abuse, though in the event – and despite a genuinely startling scene during the main credits – it’s about far more than that. An opening scene of a police interrogation has nothing to do with the main plot but sets up the central idea of multiple-personality disorder that informs the whole story. As two women are murdered, and halfway through the film the main suspect appears to commit suicide, the viewer is as much in the dark as the chief detective, who then gradually picks his way out of the labyrinth of lies during the second half, resulting in a few leaps of logic (a recurrent problem in Mainland whodunits) and big chunks of explanatory dialogue. The biggest misdirection, however, is by the writers themselves, ably supported by Yang’s direction: though genre fans may well suspect who the villain is early on, the writers don’t exactly play fair with the information they give the audience.

The film is a curious mixture of genre cliches – people dropping pill bottles which disgorge their contents, patients who walk around in dazes – with surprising twists on the genre – the shocking mid-main title scene, a nightmare sequence of a character drowning in her bathroom, the stylised finale with something under the dinner table, and so on. In a rare leading role, character actor Li, 46, who was so good as the sleazy but likeable paparazzo in whistle-blower drama Vegetate 我是植物人 (2010), sets the offbeat tone as the chief detective, perpetually snacking on anything available and with a constant look on his face of casual disbelief. Shaanxi-born supporting actor Ji Ta 姬他, 40, makes a good foil as his deputy but none of the rest of the cast can quite match Li’s low-key charisma. Tan Kai 谭凯 is okay as the main suspect, though it’s a foggily written role, given its importance; in the main female role, 32-year-old Feng Wenjuan 冯文娟 (the sparky p.a. in Love Contractually 合约男女, 2017) is also okay as his ex-wife, without engendering as much sympathy as the role requires; and as the young psychologist who tries to treat her, actor-singer Zhang Junning 张峻宁, 36, is simply smooth and elegant.

The saturated visuals by d.p. Deng Jun 邓军 are evocative throughout, while smooth editing by top Mainland editor Zhang Yifan 张一凡 is an equal plus.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Huacheng Media (CN), Zhongying Huaxia Culture Media Group (CN), Beijing Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Zhongyang Huaxia Film (Shanghai) (CN). Produced by Beijing Huacheng Media (CN).

Script: Fu Mengran, Zhao Dawei, Yang Longjie. Script advice: Li Yiming. Photography: Deng Jun. Editing: Zhang Yifan. Music: Zhang Yilin. Art direction: Jin Yang. Costumes: Li Juan. Sound: Wang Baoran. Action: Hai’er [Hu Lifeng]. Visual effects: Li Li, Huang He. Executive direction: Zhang Haobo.

Cast: Li Naiwen (Jiang Feng, chief detective), Feng Wenjuan (Xin Qi, dancer), Zhang Junning (Li Wenjia, psychologist), Tan Kai (Zhou Yan, painter), Ji Ta (Liuzi, male detective), Lu Zhanxiang (Guan Yong), Zhao Ziqi (Guan Yong’s mother), Zhang Lei (Guan Yong’s father), Feng Guoqiang (Feng, police chief), Guo Yang (murder suspect, elder brother), Guo Liang (murder suspect, younger brother), Zhao Yanqiao (Xiaoqiao, female detective), Zhang Yixin (Jiang Feng’s mother), Liu Fanfei (Jiang Wendi, painter), Liu Yanxi (Qiu Wei, Zhou Yan’s business partner), Yang Mingxin (Xiaowang), Li Zhiyong (Lin Zi, male detective), Gu Fei (Xiaoliu), Zhang Luyao (Luyao), Cai Jingyi (forensic pathologist), Zhu Meilin (Yuan Ziting, Li Wenjia’s nurse assistant), Jia Xinyun (Doudou), Li Jingjing (Zhou Yan’s assistant), Re Yilai (reporter), He Zhipeng (Wang Bin, photographer).

Release: China, 25 Jun 2021.