To Live and Die in Ordos
警察日记
China, 2013, colour, 2.35:1, 113 mins.
Director: Ning Ying 宁瀛.
Rating: 8/10.
Moving portrait of an everyday “hero”, a police chief in remote Inner Mongolia.
STORY
Ordos municipality, Inner Mongolia, northern China, the present day. Hao Wenzhang (Wang Jingchun), police chief of Jungar administrative district 旗, dies suddenly on 14 May 2011, aged 41, leaving behind his wife, elementary school teacher Meng Wenjuan (Chen Weihan), and young son Hao Yuanyuan (Gao Siyu). He is seen as a local hero, with a reputation for incorruptibility in what is one of China’s richest regions, largely thanks to its huge coal reserves. Hua Wei (Sun Liang), the top investigative reporter in Inner Mongolia, is persuaded by his editor-in-chief (Tang Ji) to write a story about him, even though Hua Wei, from past experience, is suspicious of such “heroes”. He first interviews Wang Feng (Li Runfei), who recalls taking on the 28-year-old Hao Wanzhong (then a patrolman) as a rookie detective in the Major Crimes Division, led by Yang Ming (Yuan Lijian), back in 1997 when Ordos was still known as Dongsheng. On his first day, when his wife was due to give birth, Hao Wanzhong investigated the bloody murder of a female teacher, her five-year-old daughter and sister-in-law in an apartment block. The unsolved crime, which always haunted Hao Wanzhong, was known as Case 129. On another occasion, Hao Wanzhong was almost killed when storming the flat of a psycho. Wang Feng turns over to Hua Wei all of Hao Wanzhong’s personal diaries, 68 volumes detailing 14 years of being a detective. He’s remembered as a quiet, straight-talking man, righting social wrongs and solving crimes by logic and reasoning. When he became police chief of Jungar district, famed for its corruption, he imposed strict rules on the taking of bribes. Hua Wei goes on interview others, including Qiangzi (Bai Bo), his driver; Yan, a powerful businessman; Meng Wenjuan, his grieving wife; Hao Wanqing (Hou Yansong), his younger businessman brother; colleagues who remember him tracking down a shoeshop killer, Ci Runnian (Li Yang), by sheer methodical deduction; police lawyer Li Dongfang (Zhang Jie); and those involved in Hao Wanzhong’s handling of a “labour dispute” engineered by gangsters. Gradually a portrait of the man emerges.
REVIEW
A beautifully calibrated study of a quotidien “hero” that avoids political posturing and the usual cliches, To Live and Die in Ordos 警察日记 hides its own light under a bushel in the same way as its subject, a detective in the bleak but coal-rich municipality of Ordos, Inner Mongolia – just north of Shaanxi province – whose supposedly stainless reputation is investigated by a journalist after his sudden death. It’s neither a personal drama with any sudden revelations nor a commissioned hagiography; instead, it’s a character study of a socially responsible cop in a get-rich-quick modern bordertown whose life conveniently sums up the social and ethical tensions through which the whole country has been going during the past decade or so.
The movie is a major bounce back by director Ning Ying 宁瀛, now in her mid-50s, who made her name 20 years ago with the wry, almost documentary-like For Fun 找乐 (1993) and On the Beat 民警故事 (1995). After the completion of her “Beijing trilogy” with I Love Beijing 夏日暖洋洋 (2001), Ning gradually slipped from the limelight with a variety of films, from a fine documentary on transient labour (Railroad of Hope 希望之旅, 2001) to the painfully protracted female talkfest Perpetual Motion 无穷动 (2005) and offbeat comedy on modern-day “lunacy”, The Double Life A面B面 (2010). More recently she co-directed Kung Fu Man 功夫侠 (2013), a showcase for Keanu Reeves’ favourite stuntman Chen Hu 陈虎, but it’s Ordos that finally sees Ning returning to what she does best – observation-style movies on everyday people and human foibles, here a local hero whose past is put under the microscope.
Teaming again with her elder sister, scriptwriter Ning Dai 宁岱 (For Fun; I Love Beijing; plus the excellent Seventeen Years 过年回家, 1999, and Little Red Flowers 看上去很美, 2006, both directed by Zhang Yuan 张元), Ning is actually working within a well-established Mainland genre – that of the socio-political biopic that generally has the subject’s name in the title and, especially in the past, was basically an uncritical encomium. But so subtle are Ordos‘ accomplishments that there’s a real danger the film could be mis-read by viewers that either don’t realise what it’s doing or approach it with a blinkered mindset. The Nings were approached by Inner Mongolian producer Huhebate’er 呼和巴特尔, who asked whether they’d be interested in doing a film on the recently deceased Hao Wanzhong 郝万忠, and, much like the fictional reporter in the movie, did their own research and found a story waiting to be told.
Aside from reinventing an established genre, Ordos‘ main achievement is making an involving movie from, on the surface, a fairly unremarkable, rather plodding career. Much of the success is due to lead actor Wang Jingchun 王景春 – the patient father in 11 Flowers 我11 (2011), the benignly comic Beijing cop in Love 爱 (2012) – who’s not only a physical facsimile of the real character but also anchors the whole film with an engrossing, physical performance of contained energy. Wang manages the difficult task of making a simple, principled man into a real human being rather than a boring, official archetype: a onetime high-school teacher whose hero is Sherlock Holmes, Hao Wanzhong believes crimes (and even social disputes) can be solved by rational, unemotional reasoning, filling copious diaries with his thoughts and methodical research and putting his work above all else (to the chagrin of his wife and son).
Hao Wanzhong isn’t perfect, as occasional outbursts show, but he has a sense of mission; and it’s that set of personal beliefs that the Nings, in a non-didactic way, translate into a finally very moving character study. Other roles are equally well cast, from the unemotional reporter of Sun Liang 孙亮 (Death Dowry 米香, 2009) through Hao Wanzhong’s believably ordinary police colleagues to the loving but often exasperated wife of actress-model Chen Weihan 陈维涵, in her first major film role.
Aside from the performances, the film’s success is also due to Ning Dai’s screenplay, which uses the drama of individual murder cases (and especially the brutal, unsolved Case 129 that dogs Hao Wenzhong to his grave) to bind together what would otherwise be just a series of interviews. There’s a slight loss of dramatic traction in the final labour dispute but otherwise the film flows remarkably smoothly, given its bitty, interview approach. That’s due to Ning Ying’s technical package, with smooth editing by Jia Cuiping 贾翠平 (Lala’s Gun 滚拉拉的枪, 2008; The Double Life; Lift to Hell 电梯惊魂, 2013) and widescreen photography by US d.p. Sean O’Dea (Kung Fu Man), which catches the chilly light and vast wintry landscape of central Inner Mongolia. The score by music director Liu Sijun 刘思军 blends excerpts from Dvořák with more local-sounding strains to warm effect, especially in the second half.
The Chinese title means “A Policeman’s Diary”, which contains echoes of the Chinese title (“A Policeman’s Story”) of On the Beat. The closing credits contain pictures of the real people and their real names, and journalist Tang Ji 汤计 (“Hua Wei” in the movie) and producer Huhebate’er cameo as an editor-in-chief and a doctor. The film is also known under the title Police Diary.
CREDITS
Presented by Inner Mongolia Blue Hometown Film Industry (CN), Inner Mongolia Film Group (CN), Ordos Radio & TV Media (CN). Produced by Haining Blue Hometown Film Industry (CN).
Script: Ning Dai. Photography: Sean O’Dea. Editing: Jia Cuiping. Music direction: Liu Sijun. Art direction: Wei Tao. Sound: Zhang Quanhao, He Wei. Police advice: Bai Shan. Executive director: Zhang Jie.
Cast: Wang Jingchun (Hao Wanzhong), Chen Weihan (Meng Wenjuan, Hao Wanzhong’s wife), Sun Liang (Hua Wei, reporter), Hou Yansong (Hao Wanqing, Hao Wanzhong’s younger brother), Yuan Lijian (Yang Ming, Major Crimes Division head), Gao Siyu (Hao Yuanyuan, Hao Wanzhong’s son), Bai Bo (Qiangzi, Hao Wanzhong’s driver), Zhang Jie (Li Dongfang, police lawyer), Li Meihua (Hao Wanzhong’s grandmother), Huhebate’er (doctor), Zhang Aiping (Niu, section chief), Li Runfei (Wang Feng, Ordos police chief), Li Yang (Ci Runnian), Tang Ji (editor-in-chief).
Premiere: Tokyo Film Festival (Competition), 19 Oct 2013.
Release: China, 21 Mar 2014.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 23 Oct 2013.)