Railway Heroes

铁道英雄

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 122 mins.

Director: Yang Feng 杨枫.

Rating: 8/10.

Crackerjack wartime resistance movie is a cut above the rest, made with a sense of precision and atmosphere.

STORY

Lincheng town, Shandong province, eastern China, winter 1939, during the Sino-Japanese War. At the railway works and station, on the north-south Jinpu Railway running from Tianjin to Nanjing, an underground resistance group has been formed by local Chinese workers since the invading Japanese took over the line the previous year and started using it for transporting weapons and resources south. The group is officially called the Shandong Railway Corps, 115th battalion of the CPC’s Eighth Route Army. One night three members, led by railway works foreman Hong Hai (Zhang Hanyu), kill some Japanese at the station and, in their clothes and posing as the Japanese military police (the kenpeitai 宪兵队), hijack a train and steal the army’s rations from it. Japanese army captain Iwai (Zheng Chuyi), who runs the railway station with only 20 soldiers, holds a public execution of three Chinese spies in revenge for the two Japanese killed. Later, CPC political instructor Li Chang (Yang Haoyu) informs the group that a train is coming from Lianyun harbour that evening with medical supplies for Japanese forces. The group boards the moving train and steals the supplies before it reaches Lincheng station – to the bafflement of Fujiwara Hirokazu (Mori Hiroyuki), a senior officer in the Manchu Rail Investigation Bureau who is based nearby. He orders Tang Zhe (Xiaomege), a local collaborator, to find out what is going on. Hong Hai is warned that there is a stoolie in his group. Meanwhile, Fujiwara Hirokazu suspects that veteran drunken signalman Wang (Fan Wei), who has always been on close terms with Japanese stationmaster Tanimoto (Zhang Fan), is passing information to the resistance group. Wang tips off the group that a shipment of arms is leaving Lianyun harbour on its way through Lincheng; in fact it’s an elaborate trap set up by Fujiwara Hirokazu in which three resistance fighters are killed and Hong Hai is wounded. Hong Hai manages to stagger back to Lincheng where he’s patched up by Chinese nurse Zhuang Yan (Zhou Ye). Wang realises he’s been rumbled by Fujiwara Hirokazu. But then Li Chang informs the group that a train carrying a large consignment of arms to the front must be destroyed at all costs. Qi Shun (Wei Chen), a young expert in firearms and the younger brother of a resistance fighter (Tan Kai) killed earlier, joins the group.

REVIEW

A crackerjack wartime resistance movie, set in snowy northeast China in the winter of 1939, Railway Heroes 铁道英雄 is the first released feature of film-maker Yang Feng 杨枫, who entered the industry in the 1990s, working at Shandong Radio & TV in various capacities, including scriptwriting and musicvideos. In its stygian, freezing setting, it’s in much the same vein as Yang’s unseen first feature, The Coldest City 红尘1945, a claustrophobic action drama, co-written and directed with Yang Dong 杨东, that’s set in Dec 1945 when a northeast city collapses into gangland anarchy after the Japanese withdrawal. Shot in 2018 with a heavyweight cast including Xia Yu 夏雨, Tan Kai 谭凯, Wang Keru 王可如, and Taiwan veterans Li Liqun 李立群, Zhang Guozhu 张国柱, Jin Shijie 金士杰 and Gao Jie 高捷 [Jack Kao], The Coldest City produced a trailer in 2019 but then vanished. Meanwhile, in early 2021 Yang Feng went on to shoot Railway Heroes, headed by Mainland veterans Zhang Hanyu 张涵予 and Fan Wei 范伟, which took a face-saving but hardly smash RMB142 million on release in November.

The story is fairly similar to that for Railroad Tigers 铁道飞虎 (2016), a Cheng Long 成龙 [Jackie Chan] comedy, also set in Shandong province during the Sino-Japanese War, in which a small band of crafty Chinese railworkers steal supplies off trains under the noses of the stupid invaders. The difference is that Tigers was an action romp that happneed to star Cheng, whereas Heroes is a serious resistance drama that’s more in the vein of tenebrous spy thrillers like The Message 风声 (2009). Yang takes on quintuple duties as producer (via his company Hena Pictures), writer, director, d.p. and editor, achieving the rare feat of making a large-scale production an utterly personal work which grabs the attention from the outset with its precision in all departments. As a footnote, it also manages to make a wartime action-drama that’s patriotic without being (except for one scene) overtly political.

The action is almost entirely set in or around Lincheng, a stop on the so-called Jinpu Railway, running north-south from Tianjin down to Nanjing, that was taken over by the Japanese as the main transport link for weapons and resources to their troops moving south. The railway station and its engine works is a hotbed of resistance fighters, led by its works foreman (Zhang, in a typically iron-jawed role); there’s also the curious figure of the veteran signalman (Fan) who’s chummy to everyone, including the Japanese stationmaster, and always seems to be rolling drunk. The resistance is robbing trains that pass through Lincheng, to the bafflement of the railway intelligence chief despite help from an informer and quisling.

Largely set at night, and in constant snowfall and freezing temperatures, the film develops into a game of cat-and-mice, played out with great precision as people shuffle around in the cold. Yang’s widescreen photography is heavily desaturated, at times almost monochrome, and even the score by Mainland-born, Los Angeles-based He Meizhen 何美臻 (aka Min He) is atmospheric in a precisely orchestrated way rather than the usual suspense/action wallpaper. Though there’s nothing radical in Yang’s direction, and the film is largely shot in a conventional way, its sense of purpose is immediate, leading inexorably to the final half-hour that, in the words of the Japanese villain, truly is the “final endgame”.

While the iron-jawed Zhang gives the film a sense of bravado, veteran comic Fan, with a broad regional accent, supplies a lot of the colour, as the crafty old railway worker who can smile on both sides of his face. When the two stars finally come together at the end, there’s a real sense of completion. Fan is nicely complemented by detailed playing from Japanese actor Mori Hiroyuki 森博之 as the not-so-stupid intel officer, and, clearly cast for younger audiences, 35-year-old singer-actor Wei Chen 魏晨 (Lost in White 冰河追凶, 2016; the lovestruck taxi driver in Midnight Diner 深夜食堂, 2019) makes a respectable fist of an arms specialist who joins our heroes for the showdown. In an almost exclusively male film, actress Zhou Ye 周也, 23, who was memorable as the privileged leader of the school bullies in Better Days 少年的你 (2019), makes only a token impression in a tiny role as a nurse. Apart from Mori, other Japanese roles are convincingly played by Mainland Chinese.

When action breaks the simmering surface, it’s pithily staged by Zhong Bo 钟波 and, among the detailed costuming throughout the film, occasional visual flourishes stand out, like the guerrillas’ flying white capes as they board the moving trains in the snow.

CREDITS

Presented by Huayi Brothers Pictures (Qingdao) (CN), China Film (CN), Hena (Beijing) Pictures (CN), Huayi Brothers Pictures (CN). Produced by Huayi Brothers Pictures (CN), Hena (Beijing) Pictures (CN).

Script: Yang Feng. Photography: Yang Feng. Editing: Yang Feng, Wu Lei, Tian Jiaming. Music: He Meizhen [Min He]. Art direction: Niu Ranran, She Xianlong. Costume design: Luo Peisha, Sun Jia. Styling: Zhang Shijie [Stanley Cheung]. Sound: Long Xiaozhu, Zhang Jinyan, Zhang Jinhao. Action: Zhong Bo. Special effects: Chao Qiang, Li Bin. Visual effects: Li Quansheng. Executive directors: Wu Tun, Yang Yue.

Cast: Zhang Hanyu (Hong Hai, foreman), Fan Wei (Wang, head signalman), Wei Chen (Qi Shun), Zhou Ye (Zhuang Yan, nurse), Mori Hiroyuki (Fujiwara Hirokazu, officer in Manchu Rail Investigation Bureau), Tan Kai (Qi Lu, Qi Shun’s younger brother), Yang Haoyu (Li Chang, resistance group’s political instructor), Yu Haoming (Lin Dong), Zhang Fan (Tanimoto, stationmaster), Xiaomege [Zhang Yong] (Tang Zhe, collaborator), Shang Tielong (Gaotou), Zhou Zhengjie (Shitou), Guo Mingyu (Chang Ming), Liu Xianda (Chang Liang, Chang Ming’s younger brother), Wang Fei (Gao Fei), Zheng Chuyi (Iwai, Japanese captain), Jiang Han (Xiao’anzi, stoolie), Zhang Xuan (Shinako), Jiang Yiming (Takahashi), Li Xinyue (Masami), Fang Chutong (An Hui), Li Sijia (Yingchun), Liu Jieyi (Xiaowu), Wang Da (Tokugawa, Japanese major).

Release: China, 19 Nov 2021.