Give Me a Ride

出门在外

China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 101 mins.

Directors: Fan Chao 范超, Chen Yizi 陈一孜.

Rating: 5/10.

Blackly comic mystery centred on various shady characters in a remote town is okay but isn’t involving beyond its multiple twists.

STORY

Somewhere in the west of Sichuan province, southwest China, 2007. A young woman hitches a ride in the middle of nowhere from a silent stranger, who later attacks her and bundles her into the boot of his car. In the small town of Kangdu, slobby Yu Liangsheng (Bao Bei’er), 32, who runs a tiny DVD shop, is nagged by his mother (Li Ping) to locate his younger sister Yu Xiao (He Landou), who ran off to the mountains to be a volunteer teacher. From clues on her computer, Yu Liangsheng works out roughly where she is and sets off in a car. Meanwhile, police in the region are on the look-out for two non-Chinese criminals – Itaya Yuka (Zhang Menglu), a Japanese smuggler of antiquities, and Black Bull (Wang Zheng), a trafficker of Chinese women. Also in the region are Diao Dashuan (Guo Fengzhou) and his younger brother Diao Ershuan (Yang Jinci), two ex-cons driving to meet Black Bull to buy a bride from him. In the middle of nowhere Yu Liangsheng is forced to pick up punkish female hitchhiker Guo Xiaoman (Li Meng), who starts flirting with him without success. She’s actually bait for two men looking to rob travellers; but eventually she tells them to leave her alone and sticks with Yu Liangsheng. Gradually, all the characters converge on the same remote town. After arriving there at night, Yu Liangsheng tells Guo Xiaoman to leave him alone, and she seems disappointed. At a restaurant he shows around pictures of his sister with a well-known TV personality, Thang-ga master Zhang Guolong (Yang Haoyu). The latter happens to be at the same restaurant, on his way to meet Itaya Yuka, to whom he’s selling RMB300,000 worth of looted temple artifacts. Yu Liangsheng recognises him, and follows him to a nearby hotel where Guo Xiaoman and her two robber friends also happen to be. Yu Liangsheng, in turn, is followed by Diao Dashuan and Diao Ershuan, who’ve mistaken him for Black Bull. Meanwhile, from outside town Itaya Yuka calls one of her gang and tells her to take her place at the romantic dinner Zhang Guolong has set up at the hotel. However, Itaya Yuka is then kidnapped by Black Bull.

REVIEW

Various shady parties converge on a small town in the middle of nowhere in Give Me Ride 出门在外, an okay example of the kind of blackly comic brainteaser popular in Mainland cinema a decade or more ago. Like many in the sub-genre, the set-up and development are stronger than the third act, and due to the accumulation of colourful characters the nominal star – baby-faced comedian Bao Bei’er 包贝尔, here sporting a full head of hair – becomes a supporting actor in his own film. Despite being one of the Mainland’s hardest working actors, Bao has seen his box-office appeal flatline in recent years, and Give Me a Ride was no exception, crashing with a miniscule RMB1.3 million.

The film marks the feature directing debut of d.p. Fan Chao 范超, a Beijing Film Academy graduate who was a close associate of Hu Bo 胡波, the director of cult movie An Elephant Sitting Still 大象席地而坐 (2018) who committed suicide on 12 Oct 2017, aged 29, during the final stages of editing. Fan had shot Hu’s short film To Cordoba 到科尔多瓦 (2012) and co-written with Hu his own BFA graduation short Distant Father 远隔的父亲 (2014), as well as shooting Hu’s one and only feature, Elephant. Since then, Fan has shot two online costume dramas and done some stylish work on the features Close to Love 我们的样子像极了爱情 (2022), All These Years 这么多年 (2023) and Love Life Light 照明商店 (2023).

Give Me a Ride appears to have been shot around autumn 2021, when it had the Chinese title 漫漫余生 (roughly, “Freely the Rest of One’s Life”). When the film reappeared on posters almost two years later it had gained its current English title and direction was still solely credited to Fan. However, by Nov 2023, with a projected release date of late Jan 2024, it had gained its current Chinese title (meaning, “Out and About”) as well as a co-director, Sichuan-born Chen Yizi 陈一孜 (pen name of Chen Chaoyu 陈朝玉). In the film’s main titles she gets a separate credit as writer/director, as does Chongqing-born writer Quan Lixuan 全丽璇 (who’s worked several times with noted film-maker Chen Sicheng 陈思诚); Yu Peng 于鹏 and Lin Weiliang 林伟梁 are separately billed as writers, and Fan (who was also d.p.) gets a big final credit as director.

This all suggests some last-minute re-writing by Chen and Quan, and direction by Chen, when Fan was already off the film. Whatever the case, none of this shows in the finished product, which has no stylistic lurches and is entirely focused on the mechanics of the twisty plot and the shady characters who inhabit it. Curiously, however, the film has none of the graceful look of Fan’s previous work as a d.p. Mostly shot handheld, it’s notable visually only for the vast open landscape of western Sichuan province in which the first 30 minutes take place before night falls. (Daylight returns for a while in the third act, set the following morning, but the scenery is not as striking and the plot mechanics still dominate.)

Cast as a geeky idler in his early 30s who runs (and also sleeps in) a tiny shop selling DVDs and CDs, Bao is meant to be the audience’s guide through the complicated plot, as his mother nags him to find his younger sister who’s run off to the mountains to become a volunteer teacher. A pre-main title sequence has alteady shown a young female hitchhiker kidnapped in the some open spaces; but Bao’s character manages to locate his sister’s rough location from clues on her computer, and sets out in his car to bring her home. He’s soon flagged down by a mouthy hitchhiker (actress Li Meng 李梦, in a red wig). Meanwhile, a Japanese smuggler, a human trafficker, a corrupt Thang-ga master, and two ex-cons looking to buy a bride are also roaming the countryside.

Such is the strength of all these characters that, well before the halfway point, Bao has become a supporting actor in his own film. A classy actress who too rarely gets the roles she deserves, Li (Young Love Lost 少年巴比伦, 2015; Only the Wind Knows 那一场呼啸而过的青春, 2017; Dead Pigs 海上浮城, 2018; I Love You 我要和你在一起, 2022) gives a strong performance as a self-motivated young woman who turns out to be not all she seems. Yang Haoyu 杨皓宇 (Young Love Lost) is equally colourful as the sleazy antiquities smuggler, and Zhang Menglu 张梦露 suitably cool as the mysterious Japanese woman who’s his client. As the bone-headed ex-cons looking to buy a bride from the human trafficker, Guo Fengzhou 郭丰周 and Yang Jinci 杨金赐 make a strong double act. If the resolution of all the chicanery is not quite as strong as it should be, that’s because the script is more interested in pulling twists for their own sake rather than making the audience really care for any of the characters, including Bao’s and Li’s.

CREDITS

Presented by Ningyang Films (Guangzhou) (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), Duochuanrui Film & TV Media (Beijing) (CN).

Script: Chen Yizi, Quan Lixuan, Yu Peng, Lin Weiliang. Photography: Fan Chao. Editing: Zhang Wenting, Wang Peichong. Music: Zhao Meng, Xia Ning, Shi Jian. Art direction: Gao Lu. Costumes: Liu Yihan. Styling: Liu Yimu. Sound: Xu Yanfei. Action: Wang Zhenming, Li Jun. Executive direction: Huang Dangleyang.

Cast: Bao Bei’er (Yu Liangsheng), Li Meng (Gu Xiaoman), Yang Haoyu (Zhang Guolong), He Landou (Yu Xiao, Yu Liangsheng’s younger sister), Yu Yang (Dawei), Wang Zheng (Hei Niu/Black Bull, human trafficker), Guo Fengzhou (Diao Dashuan), Yang Jinci (Diao Ershuan), Zhang Menglu (Itaya Yuka, Japanese smuggler), Li Ping (Yu Liangsheng’s mother), Han Jianyi (Huzi, Zhang Guolong’s bodyguard), Wang Yuduo (Er Mao), Wang Zheng (criminal police captain), Mou Jianping (county police chief), Jiang Yixuan (hotel receptionist), Qing Qin (female hitchhiker), Liu Kaihua (hotel cleaning lady).

Release: China, 12 Apr 2024.