Fireflies in the Sun

误杀II

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.

Director: Dai Mo 戴墨.

Rating: 6/10.

Twist-laden hospital hostage drama is solidly entertaining without ever reinventing the genre.

STORY

Sinhbang city, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the present day. After diverting security guards with a fire in a wastebin, Lin Rilang (Xiao Yang) enters the Emergency Centre of Sun Tong Hospital, the largest in the city and opposite the entrance to Chinatown. Waving a gun, he takes about a dozen people hostage in the foyer, jams the lifts and doors, and closes the main entrance. A SWAT team and veteran police detective Zhang Zhengyi (Ren Dahua) arrive on the scene. Lin Rilang demands that a donor heart, which landed at the airport two hours ago, be brought to the hospital within the hour or he’ll start executing hostages. It is 16:00. Celebrity KNTV reporter Li Anqi (Chen Yusi) hears about events and Lin Rilang’s name. She broadcasts CCTV footage of when he allegedly once tried to molest her at the studio. Lin Rilang’s wife Ling (Wen Yongshan) is in an upper floor of the same building with their eight-year-old son Lin Chong (Wang Haoze), who is hospitalised. She watches the news unfold on a TV. Lin Rilang tells Zhang Zhengyi to let Li Anqi come in with a camera; he tries to stop her, but she does so anyway. In a live broadcast, Lin Rilang claims that the heart is his son’s and tells his story. (Lin Rilang is an unemployed scriptwriter and his wife Ling a part-time tutor; both dote over their young son, and Ling would like another child. While playing football one day, Lin Chong had collapsed and was diagnosed by doctor Dama [Song Yang] at Su Tong Hospital with cardiomegaly, an over-sized heart. The only cure was a heart transplant but his parents couldn’t afford it, or get any financial help; despite selling their flat, and donations from friends, they couldn’t even raise the basic operation fee. Lin Rilang had even appealed to Li Anqi, on whose show he once worked as a writer, but she had coldly turned him down; it was then that he he’d accidentally tripped over in the studio and fallen on top of her. After applying for a new support scheme initiated by mayor Longdan [Jiang Haowen], they were told they had to wait 40 working days. In the meantime a heart match came up. Dama had given Lin Rilang an hour to raise the money – which he did by borrowing from gangsters – but was then told that the heart was no longer available, as another case had jumped the queue due to pressure from above. Dama had protested to hospital head Song Min [Zhang Shi], who had claimed he was ordered by Pangchai, chief of the Public Health Bureau.) All of this is broadcast live and public sympathy in the street outside turns towards Lin Rilang. Police chief Tangkam (Yin Ziwei) arrives and assumes command of the situation from Zhang Zhengyi. When Zhang Zhengyi protests, Tangkam tells him about something they found in Lin Rilang’s home. Tangkam orders a SWAT marksman to break into the building, but the operation ends in chaos. Lin Rilang lets two of his hostages go, including a pregnant woman (Zhou Chuchu); afterwards Lin Rilang appears to shoot the wounded SWAT marksman. Meanwhile, Li Anqi visis the head of Sinhbang Organ Donation Centre to get information on the missing heart. And then, following news that Pangchai has committed suicide, ambitious municipal secretary Sardin (Li Zhiting) arrives on the scene, effectively taking control of the situation from Tangkam.

REVIEW

A hospital hostage drama with enough twists to power a miniseries and a serviceable enough cast to see it through a couple of hours, Fireflies in the Sun 误杀II is solidly entertaining without ever reinventing the genre. Its Chinese title leads audiences to expect some kind of follow-up to the 2019 police procedural 误杀 (literally, “Manslaughter”, but known in English as Sheep without a Shepherd), which was a remake of a much-remade Indian hit. In fact, Fireflies is simply another remake of a foreign crime thriller – in this case John Q. (2002), starring Denzel Washington – and its only connection with Sheep is having the same lead actor, creative producer 监制, art director and editor, and a story that’s also centred on a father protecting his family. Initially known in English as Sheep without a Shepherd II, it was wisely given a completely different title nearer release whose meaning is explained in the film’s final flashback. Though it’s not up to the overall quality of Sheep – which was a surprise word-of-mouth hit in the Mainland, taking a rosy RMB1.2 billion – Fireflies has still performed well in its end-of-year slot, with RMB810 million in the first two weeks. [Final tally was RMB1.12 billion.]

Unlike the script for Sheep, which followed reasonably closely the Hindi version of the Malayalam original, that for Fireflies only roughly follows the general outline of John Q. Writers Li Peng 李鹏 (Sheep), Liu Wusi 刘吾驷 (Detective Chinatown 3 唐人街探案3, 2021) and Yang Meiyuan 杨梅媛 (horrors The House That Never Dies 京城81号, 2014, and Phantom of the Theatre 魔宫魅影, 2016) have stirred in a mass of corruption subplots that dominate the second half and remove the film more and more from its simple beginnings of a hostage drama in which the main relationship is between the perpetrator (who can’t afford a heart transplant for his young son) and the veteran cop (who tries to talk him out of executing the hostages). The second half is undeniably entertaining in a pulpy way as one after another official is revealed to be bent, though the film starts to lose its human focus on the father’s plight as well as the opening claustrophobia as the hostages are held at gunpoint in the hospital’s entrance hall. Compared with the US original the ending is surprisingly downbeat, though surprisingly moving in its anti-corruption, anti-elites message. Where the story of Sheep was moved to Thailand rather than China, to get around Mainland strictures on portraying officialdom, Fireflies is moved to an unidentified Southeast Asian country that’s rather like Thailand but has gobbledygook English and local signage as well as a large number of Mandarin-speaking Chinese in senior posts.

As in Sheep, sad-faced comic Xiao Yang 肖央, 41, is sympathetic in a serious role, here a struggling scriptwriter who has nowhere else to go when he can’t raise the money for his son’s transplant. Though the grieving parent role is a tad over-cooked, Xiao is at his best in exchanges with the veteran cop, played with believable disillusionment by Hong Kong veteran Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] in a beachcomber beard. Though the characters are largely generic cut-outs, they’re well-played at that level, especially Hong Kong’s Yin Ziwei 尹子维 [Terence Yin] as the starchy police chief who loses control; 25-year-old Mainland actress Chen Yusi 陈雨锶 (the dim cutie in Mojin: The Worm Valley 云南虫谷, 2018) as a celebrity TV reporter, all blazing eyes and ambition; and Hong Kong actor-singer Li Zhiting 李治廷 [Aarif Lee] in one of his more forceful roles to date, as a city official who boulders in at the hour mark and almost takes over the whole film. Hong Kong veteran Jiang Haowen 姜皓文 [Philip Keung], who played a wannabe mayor in Sheep, also pops up in a few scenes as an actual mayor.

Unlike other thrillers in the genre, there’s little development of the hostages themselves and their relationship to the main character, which is a pity and further isolates Xiao’s character. Though only flecked with humour, the film also has more than a few similarities to the absurdist comedy The Winners 大赢家 (2020), centred on a fake bank robbery.

Just as in Sheep, creative producer Chen Sicheng 陈思诚 (Beijing Love Story 北京爱情故事, 2014; Detective Chinatown 唐人街探案 series, 2015-  ) has turned over directing duties to a newbie – in this case young Shenyang-born actor Dai Mo 戴墨, who had a small role in Detective Chinatown and was also one of the directors of the 2020 online TVD version. Dai’s direction is smooth and efficient, helped along by editor Tang Hongjia 汤宏甲 (a Chen regular) and d.p. He Shan 何山 (who’s done sterling work on smaller-budgeted films like Wrath of Silence 暴烈无声, 2017, and Wisdom Tooth 日光之下, 2019). Though shooting only wrapped in Sep 2021, three months before release, there are no signs of haste.

For the record, John Q. has already been remade three times (often very loosely) by the Indian film industry, the latest being the Hindi-language Sanak (2021).

CREDITS

Presented by Wanda Media (CN), Xiamen Hengye Pictures (CN), Beijing Yitong Chuanqi Film & TV Culture (CN), China Film (CN), Beijing Excuseme Pictures (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN).

Script: Li Peng, Liu Wusi, Yang Meiyuan. Original script: James Kearns. Photography: He Shan. Editing: Tang Hongjia. Music: Hu Xiao’ou. Art direction: Zhao Xuehao. Styling: Zhang Shijie [Stanley Cheung]. Sound: Li Tao. Action: Sui Xiaoyuan. Visual effects: Xu Yao. Executive direction: Zhang Zhe.

Cast: Xiao Yang (Lin Rilang), Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Zhang Zhengyi), Wen Yongshan [Janice Man] (Ling, Lin Rilang’s wife), Chen Yusi (Li Anqi), Song Yang (Dama, doctor), Jiang Haowen [Philip Keung] (Longdan, mayor), Yin Ziwei [Terence Yin] (Dangkan/Tangkam, police chief), Chen Hao (Huang Mao), Li Zhiting [Aarif Lee] (Sardin, municipal secretary), Zhou Chuchu (pregnant woman), Zhang Shi (Song Min, hospital head), Wang Haoze (Lin Chong/Cumg, Lin Rilang’s son), Jampa Tseten (Wen),

Release: China, 17 Dec 2021.