Summer Detective
平原上的夏洛克
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.
Director: Xu Lei 徐磊.
Rating: 5/10.
A drolly observed tale of villagers-turned-detectives feels over-stretched for its content.
STORY
Tangfeng village, Hebei province, the present day, summer. After selling off all his cattle for RMB170,000, Chaoying (Xu Chaoying) decides to pay off all his debts and use the balance to renovate his home in his retirement. His friends joke that won’t be enough to lure his son back to live with him. One day, Shuangzi (Liu Yatai) finds fellow villager Shuhe (Su Shuhe) badly injured by a hit-and-run driver in the countryside. In the hospital Shuangzi says they should say Shuhe fell off his motorbike, otherwise the insurance company won’t pay the medical bills. Chaoying disagrees, saying the guilty party should be brought to justice, and pays the hospital’s initial fees for Shuhe’s operation. The police are then informed about the accident, though they admit it’ll be difficult to find the driver as there were no witnesses and no CCTV. Shuhe’s nephew (Ma Shaofeng) says he has no money to pay his uncle’s medical bills, but Chaoying offers to pay everything if the driver can’t be found. Chaoying and his friend Zhanyi (Zhang Zhanyi) start their own investigation, reckoning the car must have come from one of three villages west of Tangfeng: Zhanglin, Shuangjing or Tongkou. Using the CCTV of a shop, they manage to identify three cars and then try to track them down. This proves easier said than done, and Shuhe’s aftercare hospital bills are mounting daily, putting a strain on Chaoying’s savings, already depleted by the building work on his home. But finally they get access to the third car – which turns out to have scratches on its front wing. The only problem is that it’s owned by a local bigshot, businessman Fan (Zhang Xifeng).
REVIEW
A drolly observed tale of villagers who turn sleuths to solve a friend’s hit-and-run accident, Summer Detective 平原上的夏洛克 gets by as a gentle comedy of manners that’s a snapshot of contemporary mores outside the large cities of the North China Plain. The first feature of Hebei-born writer-director Xu Lei 黄磊, who previously made the short From Taibei to Shenbei 从台北到深北 (2014), it feels over-long at 90-plus minutes but can’t be faulted for its genial take on rural life, with its aspirations, petty officialdom and constricting customs. Theatrical box office of almost RMB10 million was surprisingly strong for such a modest undertaking.
The film’s unaffected look and humour are very similar to that of Shenbei, a compact tale about a primary school teacher from Taiwan who ends up stranded in a northern Mainland village in winter. But where that short seemed just the right length at 25 minutes, Detective is a pint poured into a quart pot and would have been more comfortable as an hour-long featurette. It’s basically a shaggy-dog story, in which a farmer prepares for retirement by selling all his cattle but then finds his savings whittled away when he and others try to buck the insurance system by getting justice for an injured friend. The film’s Chinese title means “Sherlock(s) of the (North China) Plain” but the detecting element is only a small part of the already wafer-thin plot: many scenes are just observational, with the characters going about their daily life, chatting, and trying to get round the social and procedural obstacles in their way.
Produced on the creative side 监制 by noted theatre and film writer-director Rao Xiaozhi 饶晓志 (black comedies The Insanity 你好，疯子！, 2016, and A Cool Fish 无名之辈, 2018), the whole package is redeemed by the sympathetic performances of the non-pro cast, especially Xu’s father, Xu Chaoying 徐朝英, as the blank-faced but quietly determined protagonist. Technical credits are all smooth, from the clean widescreen photography of a north China summer by Wang Xiaoguang 王晓光 to the eclectic but easygoing music by Ou Ge 讴歌 (Only You 命中注定, 2015) and unobtrusive editing by Ye Ruchang 叶濡畅 (The Insanity) and Tong Ling 童凌. Next time, Xu – who was one of several writers on wannabe action-comedy blockbuster The Rookies 素人特工 (2019) by Hong Kong director Yuan Jinlin 袁锦麟 [Alan Yuen] – will hopefully come up with a more substantial screenplay without losing his gift for sly observation.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism (CN), Shenzhen City Rao Xiaozhi Film Studio (CN).
Script: Xu Lei. Photography: Wang Xiaoguang. Editing: Ye Ruchang, Tong Ling. Music: Ou Ge. Art direction: Li Muyuan. Sound: Xu Zhizheng, Hao Gang.
Cast: Xu Chaoying (Chaoying), Zhang Zhanyi (Zhanyi), Su Shuhe (Shuhe), Li Rongjian (Shuhe’s younger sister), Ma Shaofeng (Shuhe’s nephew), Zhang Xifeng (Fan), Zhao Shuxian (Fan’s wife), Jia Liang (shop owner), Liu Helin (Guizi), Song Dazhan (Erkui), Mu Xiaoguang (hardware-shop owner), Yin Shuaisen (hardware-shop owner’s son), Zhao Yueqing (Zhao, policeman), Qiao Zeqi (Zhao’s assistant), Liu Yatai (Shuangzi), Zhang Haitang (Haitang, bathhouse masseur), Yang Ziaoqiang (Yu Chao, policeman), Du Jie (hospital doctor), .
Premiere: First Film Festival (Competition), Xining, China, 22 Jul 2019.
Release: China, 29 Nov 2019.