Only the River Flows

河边的错误

China, 2023, colour, 1.85:1, 101 mins.

Director: Wei Shujun 魏书钧.

Rating: 5/10.

Darkly-shot psychodrama-cum-whodunit is a brave stab at a China Noir but ultimately falls short of its target.

STORY

Wanning county, Peishui municipality, Jiangdong province, China, 15 Dec 1995. The local police chief (Hou Tianlai) tells detective Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong), a decorated policeman from Yunnan province, to use an abandoned cinema as a headquarters for his team. That afternoon Wang Fengxia (Cao Yang), a solitary old villager, is murdered by the river. That evening, just after Ma Zhe has returned home to his pregnant wife Bai Jie (Zeng Meihuizi), a primary-school teacher, he’s called out after the old woman’s body is found by a young boy (Zhou Qingyun). The villagers tell Ma Zhe she had adopted a mentally-impaired man, whom everyone calls the “madman”; given to wandering around on his own, he has now disappeared, though locals say he is harmless. Near the dead woman’s body is found a brand-new woman’s handbag with an audio cassette inside that appears to contain just popular songs. The local police chief tells Ma Zhe that the case is being closely monitored by their superiors. The “madman” (Kang Chunlei) then turns up by the river, seemingly mourning Wang Fengxia’s death, though he won’t speak to anyone, including Ma Zhe, who orders him to be taken to the police station. On its B side, the cassette tape is found to contain a woman’s romantic messages, recorded near a rail track, to a man called Hong. Ma Zhe eventually identifies her as Qian Ling (Liu Baisha), an accountant, who claims she saw the old woman’s body when walking home from work and ran off, dropping her handbag. A man named Wang Hong (Moxi Zishi) confirms her story and adds that, on the day of the murder, he himself, while waiting by the river for Qian Ling, saw a tall woman running away very fast; she was in the working clothes of the local textile factory and had long flowing, wave-like hair. At the factory Ma Zhe learns that no female employee left early that day, only the factory’s male hairdresser, Xu Liang (Wang Jianyu), who says he was by the river that day, fishing. Ma Zhe discovers Xu Liang has a criminal record, but Wang Hong’s story appears to be a dead end. Later, Wang Hong’s body is found by the river after going there to meet Qian Ling, though she tells the police that she didn’t leave her house all day. Ma Zhe arrests the “madman” and he is sent to a mental asylum. The local police chief, eager to wrap things up, declares the case closed. But Ma Zhe is not so sure.

REVIEW

Beijing-born film-maker Wei Shujun 魏书钧, 32, has progressed by small leaps since the aimless Striding into the Wind 野马分鬃 (2020) – his third feature-length production but the first since switching to arthouse movies – and in a few years’ time he may make a film that’s satisfying on all levels. Only the River Flows 河边的错误, his third arty indie, is a darkly-shot serial-killer mystery that’s part psychodrama and part whodunit, as a young detective slowly goes mental trying to solve a spate of rural murders. A brave stab at a China Noir that has several good details but at the end of the day falls short of its target, it’s nevertheless taken RMB310 million in two months of release – an amazing figure for a film of this kind and light years ahead of Striding’s RMB11.7 million and his subsequent Ripples of Life 永安镇故事集 (2023, RMB3.2 milion).

In box-office terms Wei is therefore in the same bracket as other Mainland Noir-ists, Diao Yi’nan 刁亦男, whose The Wild Goose Lake 南方车站的聚会 (2019) took RMB203 million, and the flukey Bi Gan 毕赣, whose Long Day’s Journey into Night 地球最后的夜晚 (2018) took RMB282 million. Both Diao and Bi profited from their films being in Cannes a few months earlier, as was River (in the sidebar Un Certain Regard). Wei’s film also had the extra draws of being based on a 1988 novella (see left) by one of the Mainland’s best-known authors, Yu Hua 余华 (whose To Live 活着 was filmed by Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 in 1994), and also starring an actor, Zhu Yilong 朱一龙, 35, who, though not a superstar, is currently hot after playing the lead in the twisty-turny psychothriller Lost in the Stars 消失的她, a mega-hit of 2022.

Zhu plays Ma Zhe, a laurelled detective from Yunnan province, who’s faced with solving a spate of murders in a rural area surrounded by rivers. The obvious killer appears to be a mentally-challenged man (played by scriptwriter Kang Chunlei 康春雷) whom the first victim, a solitary old village women, had adopted. Perpetually egged on by the local police chief to wrap up the case, Ma Zhe takes his time – and uncovers the usual secrets of a small community. But as the clues seem to lead nowhere, and pressures increase via his pregnant wife who receives disquieting news from her obstetrician, Ma Zhe starts to go slightly crazy.

The first problem with the film is that not enough reason is given for Ma Zhe’s gradual “breakdown”: he certainly has some pressures but not enough to justify the semi-fantastic, dream-like sequences in the final part. There are some earlier hints that Ma Zhe is not quite everything he seems, though Zhu’s handsome but blank performance is of little help, and the detective’s relationship with his wife (nicely, if briefly, portrayed by Zeng Meihuizi 曾美慧孜, The Pluto Moment 冥王星时刻, 2018, The Fallen Bridge 断•桥, 2022) is not drawn in any real depth. Added to which, despite the effectiveness of the wintry, overcast photography (shot largely on 16mm) by Cheng Ma Zhiyuan 程马志远 (Duckweed 乘风破浪, 2017; Lost, Found 找到你, 2018), heightened by frequent rain to complete the noir-ish look, the film gives no real feel for the landscape in which it’s set – and in which rivers are meant to be so important. In general, the setting is just another drab, rundown mid-1990s community so often seen in pre-boom Mainland movies.

More successful is the dynamic between Ma Zhe and the local police chief, a wily old bureaucrat seemingly more interested in ping-pong than murder cases, wittly played by Hou Tianlai 候天来 (who also played a police chief in the Zhen Zidan 甄子丹 [Donnie Yen] search-and-rescue drama Come Back Home 搜救, 2022). The use of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is an obvious but effective atmosphere-builder, and the invisible editing by France’s Matthieu Laclau (The Best Is Yet to Come 不止不休, 2020; Before Next Spring 如果有一天我将会离开你, 2021) keeps things moving. But apart from a neat visual shock at the 72-minute mark, there are few surprises, and the fantasy sequences that follow seem gratingly out of line with the rest of the film’s style. As in the use of an abandoned cinema for the detective’s offices, the whole movie is just a bit too knowing and film-buffy for the viewer to be really absorbed by the story.

The film was shot in Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces between Dec 2022 and Feb 2023. Its Chinese title, which is the same as the novella by Yu, literally means “Mistake(s) by the River”. What the English title means is anyone’s guess.

CREDITS

Presented by Hangzhou Dangdang Film (CN), Infinite Films (Xiamen) (CN), Horgos Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Emei Film Group (CN), China Film (CN), Shaanxi Dangdang Film (CN), Joicy Studio (Hanghou) (CN). Produced by Hangzhou Dangdang Film (CN).

Script: Kang Chunlei, Wei Shujun. Novella: Yu Hua. Photography: Cheng Ma [Cheng Ma Zhiyuan]. Editing: Matthieu Laclau. Music: various. Art direction: Zhang Menglun. Styling: Su Chao. Sound: Zhang Yong, Du Zegang, Du Duzhi. Action: Li Buhui. Special effects: Kong Jinhai. Visual effects: Wang Shang (Daysview Digital Image). Executive direction: Li Xingbo.

Cast: Zhu Yilong (Ma Zhe), Zeng Meihuizi (Bai Jie), Hou Tianlai (police chief), Tong Linkai (Xie, Ma Zhe’s assistant), Kang Chunlei (madman), Wang Jianyu (Xu Liang, hairdresser), Moxi Zishi (Wang Hong), Liu Baisha (Qian Ling, Wang Hong’s girlfriend), Cao Yang (Wang Fengxia), Zhou Qingyun (boy by river), Zeng Qi (Xiaoting, policewoman), Huang Jun (Zhao), Huang Miyi (obstetrician), Yan Hexiang (man with glasses), Zhou Yu (photographer), Meng Xiangliang (Yan, police lieutenant).

Premiere: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard), 20 May 2023.

Release: China, 21 Oct 2023.