The Untold Story
那个不为人知的故事
China, 2024, colour, 2.35:1, 101mins.
Director: Zhang Yan 张岩.
Rating: 7/10.
A terrific performance by actress Lang Yueting is the glue that holds this offbeat, odd-couple love story together, despite script weaknesses.
STORY
Jiangzhou city, somewhere in China, the present day. Art restorer Yang Zhao (Lang Yueting) is called to a police station after her younger brother, high-school student Yang Jintian (Li Xiaoqian), has been brought in for questioning after a dispute with a taxi driver, Chen Mingsheng (Qiu Ze). The taciturn driver apologises and agrees to pay RMB5,000 in compensation when he can afford it, so Yang Zhao drops any formal complaint. He gives her his phone number but she throws it away outside the police station. Sometime later, on a rainy evening, Yang Zhao happens to take Chen Mingsheng’s taxi home; but just before arriving at her apartment building the taxi gets stuck in a pothole. After noticing he has something wrong with his left leg, Yang Zhao helps Chen Mingsheng push the vehicle out and invites him up to her flat to clean up. She’s caught a chill and falls asleep on the sofa; he stays to watch her and falls asleep in a chair. His left leg is, in fact, severed at the knee; next morning she takes him to a hospital to have it checked. With her taking the lead, they gradually get to know each other, especially when he helps her track down her errant brother who hangs out in karaoke clubs. She notices that Chen Mingsheng, though introverted, appears to have a violent past and is used to dealing with shady characters. She invites him round to cook for her and, after she kisses him, they end up making love. Sometime later he introduces her to some friends, who are surprised by what they see as her unnatural attraction to a part-cripple. On another day, while she’s out with a male friend from the US, Xue Miao (Wang Daotie), she sees them all at a street restaurant and tells them bluntly that she’s sincere and generous by nature. She suggests to Chen Mingsheng that they get away for a few days, and go by train to Ganzi [Garzê] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture where the landscape is beautiful and restful. En route, however, he appears to recognise two passengers and reports them for taking drugs on the train. Afterwards, in their hotel room, she demands some answers to whether he recognised the men, why is his body so scarred, and even whether he himself has ever taken drugs. He denies he’s ever taken drugs and just assures her that he’s “a good person”. The case makes the papers, with his picture, and he’s soon ordered to come back to Jiangzhou by Xu (Xing Jiadong), who turns out to be his former police boss. (Before losing his leg on duty, Chen Mingsheng was engaged in an undercover operation down in Yunnan province to trap druglord Bai Ji [Dong Borui] by pretending to protect him from some thugs – also undercover police – and thus win his confidence. Bai Ji knows him as Jiang Ming.) Xu is now worried that Bai Ji will see that Chen Mingsheng is still alive and will come looking for him, hopefully to take him back into his confidence. Chen Mingsheng tells Yang Zhao he has to leave Jiangzhou immediately, and may be away for six months or even a year, so she shouldn’t wait for him if someone else comes along. He still can’t tell her why, and as he flies off to Yunnan he deletes her name from his mobile phone.
REVIEW
Actress Lang Yueting 郎月婷 is the glue that holds together The Untold Story 那个不为人知的故事, an offbeat romantic drama with a crime background that tries to do something different with generic material. It doesn’t always succeed, but it always looks great, is often cleverly edited, and owes its best moments to Lang’s restrained but strong playing of an art restorer who falls for a taciturn taxi driver with a murky past, played solidly enough by Taiwan actor-singer Qiu Ze 邱泽. For such a modest drama, it took a surprisingly decent RMB113 million late last year, marking a promising feature debut by Shanxi-born director Zhang Yan 张岩, 38.
The script is based on a novel of the same Chinese name – serialised online in 2014 and published in book form in 2015 (see cover, left) – by Shenyang-born author Twentine, whose works have often been adapted into other mediums. (Among several pen names, she’s also known as Zhou Aihua 周爱华.) The novel has also reportedly been adapted into a 24-part online drama, The Story Untold 那个不为人知的故事, though it has yet to see the light of day despite publishing several posters during the past year.
A former concert pianist who only turned to acting with a supporting role in Blind Detective 盲探 (2013), Lang, 39, fully revealed her talent in rural drama Mountain Cry 喊•山 (2015) but has only rarely received similar chances since (a recent exception being WW2 spy triller Seven Killings 刀尖, 2023). Though Qiu technically gets top billing in Untold Story, it’s Lang’s movie all the way, and a peachy part for the Dalian-born actress. Playing an art restorer who’s recently returned from the US to set up her own business and also look after her errant younger brother, Yang Zhao is drawn from the start as a strong, somewhat cold character who won’t compromise her ideals. Called to a police station one night to sort out her brother’s argument with a taxi driver, she demands the latter apologises and pays a small compensation, dismissively throwing away the mobile number he gives her to guarantee his bona fides.
Some days later she happens to take his cab in the pouring rain and, when the car hits a pothole, helps him out when she sees he has a problem with one of his legs. Though she hardly knows him, she invites him to dry out up in her swish flat, where she discovers he only has half a left leg. They fall asleep (separately) in the lounge, gradually getting to know each other in the days to come. At every turn, Yang Zhao is the motor behind the relationship, from confidently inviting him up to her flat at night to suggesting later opportunities to get together – and finally taking him to bed. When his friends suggest she’s somehow perverted to fall for a half-cripple, she faces them down without hesitation.
The film is clearly an attempt to deepen the usual portrayal of an unlikely, meet-cute relationship, by making it believable and not just a script device. But despite Lang’s terrific, convinced performance, the idea is let down by the screenplay, which never provides a convincing reason for Yang Zhao to be attracted to such a blank character – who hardly utters a word, never encourages the relationship, clearly has some violence in his background (judging by scars on his body), and refuses to divulge his past. Even at a purely sexual level of attraction, the script rarely allows Lang to display much emotion, and the way in which such a determined, straight-talking woman puts up with the man’s continuing silence about his past doesn’t make sense in the long run. It’s not until an hour into the film that the audience is let in on his past, and not until almost the end that Yang Zhao learns it.
Despite this major flaw, the movie still manages, in its closing 10 minutes, to be genuinely moving – though more in retrospect than during the actual relationship. In a departure from his more pin-uppy roles (Romance Out of the Blue 浪漫天降, 2015), and better-known Taiwan movies like Dear Ex 谁先爱上他的 (2018) and Man in Love 当男人恋爱时 (2021), Taibei-born Qiu, 43, has few chances to do much with his character, who’s painfully introverted and only fully blooms in brief flashbacks to before his accident. The way in which the screenplay keeps the audience in the dark about his past becomes increasingly annoying, and doesn’t encourage much sympathy. Among the small supporting cast, veteran character actor Xing Jiadong 邢佳栋 is briefly good as a former boss, Wang Daotie 王道铁 smoothly unlikeable as Yang Zhao’s onetime partner (maybe lover), and Dong Borui 董博睿 suitably evil as a druglord.
Shot in the second half of 2023 in Lijiang, in Yunnan province, and Ganzi [Garzê] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in Sichuan province, the whole film is beautifully shot by Wang Boxue 王博学 (Dying to Survive 我不是药神, 2018; Nice View 奇迹 笨小孩, 2022) and Wang Yuhan 王宇涵, whose widescreen photography of both mountainous landscapes and interior close-ups is emotionally resonant. The editing by Liu Meibei 刘美贝 and Wei Yong 魏永 is both artfully arcane when it needs to be and much more meaningful in the latter stages (such as the split-screen for when Qiu’s character visits places frequented by Yang Zhao). Music by Yuan Sihan 袁思翰 (Father and Hero 侠路相逢, 2018) is attentive, restrained and generally warm.
CREDITS
Presented by U.Lan Media (Chengdu) (CN), China Film Creative (Beijing) (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Entertainment (CN), Sunlight Studio (Chengdu) (CN). Produced by U.Lan Media (Chengdu) (CN).
Script: Lei Guanglin, Zhang Siyu. Novel: Twentine [Zhou Aihua]. Photography: Wang Boxue, Wang Yuhan. Editing: Liu Meibei, Wei Yong. Music: Si Han [Yuan Sihan]. Production design: Li Miao. Art direction: Yang Xuegang, Guo Jinhui. Costumes: Zhang Guoliang. Styling: Lei Shuyu. Sound: Li Shuo, An Wei. Action: Lei Zhiqiang. Visual effects: Jiang Chao, Huang Canzhou (Kernel). Executive direction: Sun Wenhan.
Cast: Qiu Ze (Chen Mingsheng), Lang Yueting (Yang Zhao), Li Xiaoqian (Yang Jintian), Xing Jiadong (Xu, chief detective), Wang Daotie (Xue Miao), Ke Da (Wang Lei), Gan Junchen (Song Hui), Shang Xin (Jiang Qing), Dong Borui (Bai Ji), Zhang Feng (Yan Zhengtao, young policeman), Wang Zhipeng (Feng).
Release: China, 9 Nov 2024.