Fire on the Plain

平原上的火焰

China, 2021, colour, 1.85:1. 100 mins.

Director: Zhang Ji 张骥.

Rating: 5/10.

Well acted but poorly scripted psycho/crime drama, set in China’s grim northeast, starts promisingly but has a second half that seems unmotivated and disconnected.

STORY

Jiyuan city, Jilin province, northeast China, Dec 1997. A taxi driver has been murdered in Fengtun district, the second such killing in a month. Taxi drivers are protesting outside police headquarters and the investigating officer, Jiang Bufan (Yuan Hong), is under pressure from the police chief to solve the case. To help him, Jiang Bufan is using Zhuang Shu (Liu Haoran), a sullen loafer, to go undercover. State-owned industries are going bankrupt, and there is much unemployment in the region. Zhuang Shu lives with his parents, whose next-door neighbour, Li Shoulian (Tang Zeng), has just been laid off at his factory. Li Shoulian’s daughter, Li Fei (Zhou Dongyu), has been privately tutored in art for some time by Zhuang Shu’s mother, Fu Dongxin (Mei Ting), a professional artist. Li Fei wants to leave with her father and study somewhere warmer in the south, such as Shenzhen. Li Fei likes Zhuang Shu but he is cool towards her. Jiang Bufan interviews a taxi driver, Hu Tiaobiao (Yu Hai), who narrowly escaped being garotted by the killer. Meanwhile, Zhuang Shu steals some of the money that he’s seen his father, Zhuang Dezeng (Chen Minghao), a professional gambler, give to a factory manager (Han Wen’ge) in exchange for outdated machinery. He hides it behind some bricks and Li Fei, who’s been following Zhuang Shu, uses it to buy four train tickets to Shenzhen on 26 Dec. She givs the remaining money to her father, who returns it to Zhuang Dezeng, who is angry at both his son and Li Fei. The event brings Li Fei and Zhuang Shu closer together. She also gives one of the train tickets to Fu Dongxin, whom her father has always liked and who is having marital problems with Zhuang Dezeng; the fourth ticket she plans to give to Zhuang Shu, if she can persuade him to come with her. Meanwhile, another victim is found, this time a woman, inside a burned-out taxi. Li Fei invites Zhuang Shu to join her in making a bonfire, in a cornfield in Fengtun, at 22:00 on 24 Dec. That night, her father sees her walking alone to her secret rendezvous with Zhuang Shu, and by chance Jiang Bufan, working undercover as a taxi driver, is there to take the two of them home. But the evening ends tragically, with Jiang Bufan dead and Li Fei almost killed by a passing lorry. Eight years later, in Apr 2005, Zhuang Shu has become a policeman and decides to investigate Jiang Bufan’s unsolved death. Both Li Shoulian and Li Fei have been missing since that night.

REVIEW

Set in a wintry northeastern city where taxi drivers are being murdered for no obvious reason, Fire on the Plain 平原上的火焰 is a wannabe China Noir with a promising first half that lays out the territory and characters before a sudden eruption of violence and a second half set eight years later that seem unmotivated and disconnected. This first feature by d.p. Zhang Ji 张骥 – best known for his striking widescreen photography on the period black comedy North by Northeast 东北偏北 (2014) – comes with several artsy badges, including director Diao Yi’nan 刁亦男 (known for his own noirish crime dramas, like Black Coal, Thin Ice 白日焰火, 2014, also set in the wintry northeast) as creative producer and France’s Matthieu Laclau as editor. The film gets an extra point for its strong performances, led by petite actress Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨 and young actor Liu Haoran 刘昊然, but its inescapable main fault is the scattergun script by new name Cao Liu 曹柳, a Beijing Film Academy graduate, that attempts a psycho/crime drama without any logical psychology or knowing how to lay out the ground in a crime story; instead, the script seems more interested in scoring dramatic points – all eagerly supported by Zhang’s artsy mounting. After premiering at the San Sebastian festival in autumn 2021, the film finally made it to Mainland cinemas in spring 2025, taking a puny RMB19 million.

Cao based her script on a short story, Moses on the Plain 平原上的摩西, by Liaoning-born writer Shuang Xuetao 双雪涛, published in 2016 as the lead story in a collection of 10 (see cover, left). Liu’s script follows the original only very broadly, not explaining many of the characters’ backgrounds, changing events, and generally disposing of any logical development. The two youthful main characters, raised as neighbours, take a while to come together emotionally, and their parents, whose backgrounds are detailed in the short story, are almost blank ciphers. After a dramatic climax halfway, which seems to come out of nowhere, the film jumps ahead eight years, during which time the sullen teenage boy has changed into an upright policeman and the girl has disappeared into a world of drugs and sex. After suddenly deciding to investigate the unsolved murder of a friend after eight years, the film then becomes a confused succession of dramatic events which bear no logical relation to anything.

As a whodunit it’s poorly laid out and hardly satisfying; as a tragic love story it’s only partly involving thanks to the two lead performances. As the artist/dreamer who just wants to get away from the grim northeast, the sad-eyed, elfin Zhou – then 28 and riding high on the succes of Better Days 少年的你 (2019) – rises, as often, above the material, creating her own universe without actually expanding her range. The more surprising performance is given by Liu, then 22, as the young man in her life who’s transformed from a moody teen to a conscientious cop – quite a change from his roles in the Detective Chinatown franchise, if still not at the future level of his seriously offbeat character in Decoded 解密 (2024).

As the mother who’s clearly stuck in an unrewarding marriage, veteran Mei Ting 梅婷 says more with her large sad eyes than Cao’s script ever reveals, while TV’s Tang Zeng 唐曾 tries vainly to make sense of his foggily written part as the father of Zhou’s character. As a dedicated policeman on the trail of the serial killer in the first half, Yuan Hong 袁弘, also largely a TV actor, is solid.

The dull, wintry photography by Cheng Ma 程马, aka Cheng Ma Zhiyuan 程马志远, has the d.p.’s typically realistic look without being as visually striking as other dramas set in the same region and season. Music by Russia-born, Paris-based brothers Evgueni and Sacha Galperine is delicately atmospheric, with electro-acoustic additions. The film was shot in and around Jilin city, northeast China, from Mar to Jun 2020.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Maoyan Picture (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Beijing Wishart Media (CN), Xiaoxiang Film Group (CN), Shanghau Turan Movie (CN). Produced by Shanghai Turan Movie (CN).

Script: Cao Liu. Story advice: Li Baiyang. Short story: Shuang Xietao. Photography: Cheng Ma [Cheng Ma Zhiyuan]. Editing: Matthieu Laclau. Music: Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine (main); B6 (end titles). Art direction: Song Xiaojie. Costumes: Hou Wenhua. Styling: Li Hua. Sound: Wu Jiang, Li Xikai. Action: Choi Dong-hun. Visual effects: Zhang Chao, Zhang Chunmiao (Beijing Soar Dragon of Legend). Executive direction: Kuerbanjiang.

Cast: Zhou Dongyu (Li Fei), Liu Haoran (Zhuang Shu), Mei Ting (Fu Dongxin, Zhuang Shu’s mother), Yuan Hong (Jiang Bufan), Tang Zeng (Li Shoulian, Li Fei’s father), Lv Yulai (Sun Tianbo, Sun Yuxin’s son), Chen Minghao (Zhuang Dezeng, Zhuang Shu’s father), Hou Yansong (Zhao Xiaodong), Na Shengyan (Hu Fei, Hu Tiaobiao’s son), Wei Liping (Jiang Bufan’s mother), Han Wen’ge (factory manager), Xue Baohe (big guy), Yu Hai (Hu Tiaobiao, taxi driver), Xin Wei (fighting policeman), Chen Duan (female police officer, technical section), Sun Zhonghong (Sun Yuxin, doctor), Sun Dingwen (Zhao Qingge), Zou Yuanqing (Feng Lili).

Premiere: San Sebastian Film Festival (Competition), 21 Sep 2021.

Release: China, 8 Mar 2025.