Vortex
铤而走险
China, 2019, colour/b&w, 2.35:1, 103 mins.
Director: Gan Jianyu 甘剑宇.
Rating: 8/10.
In his first non-comic lead role, Mainland actor Da Peng anchors this well-written, twisty crime drama, an assured first feature by young director Gan Jianyu.
STORY
Chongqing city, central China, the present day. As a warning, car mechanic Liu Xiaojun (Da Peng) has his workshop smashed up by moneylenders to whom he owes RMB100,000 in gambling debts. He has 10 days to pay, or else. His friend Wan Wei (Cao Bingkun), a second-hand car dealer, offers him a job stealing unregistered cars and re-selling them, but Liu Xiaojun tries to raise the money from friends instead. Veteran police detective Wang Yong (Cao Weiyu), with whom Liu Xiaojun’s late father once worked, gives him RMB5,000 on condition he doesn’t gamble it away. Liu Xiaojun does just that and loses everything, forcing him to accept Wan Wei’s offer. One rainy night he steals a vehicle but finds it’s being used by two criminals with guns. After barely escaping with the car and his life, Liu Xiaojun finds a five-year-old girl, Chen Siqi (Wulantuoya Duo), trussed up in the boot. Wan Wei says the car was actually one of his but he gave it to Zhang Qian (Li Meng), a girlie-bar owner he fancied. He tells Liu Xiaojun to repair the car and sort out the problem with the girl. When the two criminals – Xia Tao (Sha Baoliang) and younger brother Xia Xi (Ou Hao) – tell Zhang Qian what has happened, she freaks out. And when Liu Xiaojun speaks to her over the phone and says he has the young girl, Zhang Qian begs for two days to get the RMB200,000 ransom. Meanwhile, Wang Yong drops by and loans Liu Xiaojun RMB10,000 more towards his debt. The police have found out about the car theft from traffic cameras, and the bullets recovered match those from a case three months earlier. Wang Yong asks Wan Wei if the car was one of his and is unconvinced by his denial. Liu Xiaojun arranges with Zhang Qian a place and method to hand over the ransom and the young girl, and asks Wan Wei to help him. Meanwhile, Zhang Qian has offered to pay Xia Tao and Xia Xi extra money to find the girl. On the night of the handover, however, Wan Wei double-crosses Liu Xiaojun, throwing everything into chaos.
REVIEW
In his first non-comic lead role, Mainland actor Da Peng 大鹏 (aka Dong Chengpeng 董成鹏) makes a surprisingly fine anchor throughout Vortex 铤而走险, a twisty crime drama that’s also an impressive solo directing debut by Gan Jianyu 甘剑宇, a Chongqing-born film-maker in his early 30s. Playing a car mechanic who gets caught up by sheer chance in an elaborate kidnapping scheme, Da Peng brings surprising depth and even moments of pathos to the role of a weak, desperate man without ever introducing a hint of comedy or irony into the proceedings. Given his talent for straight-faced humour, this is an even more notable achievement, helped by a sharp script by Li Meng 李萌 (mining drama Explosion 引爆者, 2017), Gan and Yi Hui 依辉, that doesn’t parade its clever construction and gives plenty of space for the acting ensemble to perform. Despite the presence of Da Peng and actor-singer Ou Hao 欧豪 (suprisingly good as a cold-bloodied young gangster), plus the name of creative producer 监制 Cao Baoping 曹保平 (Einstein and Einstein 狗13, 2013; The Dead End 烈日灼心, 2015; Cock and Bull 追凶者也, 2016), local box-office reached only a meh RMB44 million.
Gan, who studied at the Communication University of Zhejiang and subsequently at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, has made only one previous feature, the HKAPA graduation film Sometimes Naive… 小学鸡大电影 (2013), a light comedy about film-making co-directed with Macau-born Xu Xinxian 徐欣羡 [Tracy Choi] who went on to direct Sisterhood 骨妹 (2016). Vortex, largely set at night in the underbelly of Gan’s native Chongqing, and grittily shot by the reliable Cheng Ma Zhiyuan 程马志远 (Duckweed 乘风破浪, 2017; Lost, Found 找到你, 2018), couldn’t be more different, plunging the viewer straight into the drama as Da Peng’s shifty mechanic, up to his eyes in gambling debts, gets a warning from his creditors and is forced to accept a job by a shady second-hand car dealer of stealing unregistered vehicles for resale. One rainy night he unfortunately chooses a car with a young girl trussed up in the boot, putting him on a collision course with two hardened gangsters, a local detective he blames for his father’s death, and a whole tangled backstory.
Cao’s guiding hand may be partly responsible for the film’s assured style and construction, but it’s Da Peng who carries the thing on screen. Already an accomplished writer-director in his own right (Jianbing Man 煎饼侠, 2015; City of Rock 缝纫机乐队, 2017) as well as being a goofy comedian (Father and Son 父子雄兵, 2017; The Thousand Faces of Dunjia 奇门遁甲, 2017), the 37-year-old film-maker, here without his trademark specs, is completely believable as a mechanic scraping a backstreets living who’s sucked down into a (yes) vortex by a final piece of bad luck. The character’s growing relationship with the five-year-old girl (sympathetically played by Inner Mongolia-born Wulantuoya Duo 乌兰托雅•朵, Hope of Road 闽宁镇, 2018) becomes the heart of the drama, as various other parties’ lives are also thrown into chaos. As the younger of the two gangsters, Ou, more often in pretty-boy roles, cuts a particularly powerful profile in the latter stages, while actress Li Meng 李梦 (so good in Young Love Lost 少年巴比伦, 2015) develops strongly as the woman behind the kidnapping. In other supporting roles, Cao Weiyu 曹卫宇 and Cao Bingkun 曹炳琨 are equally memorable as the veteran detective and two-timing car dealer.
Director Gan and his d.p. have a good, unshowy feel for Chongqing and its environs, but it’s the script’s uncommonly well-drawn characters – across the whole cast – that make the film stand out, as well as its oblique way in explaining the plot (seen largely from the protagonist’s point-of-view). People are defined by their actions, rather than character-building scenes that could hold up the story, and what is basically a series of clever coincidences is neatly tied together by Da Peng’s strong lead performance. Action by South Korea’s Choi Dong-heon 최동헌 | 崔东宪, who also worked on the Mainland productions Lost in White 冰河追凶 and Super Express 超级快递 (both 2016), is realistic rather than acrobatic and editing by Hong Kong’s experienced Kuang Zhiliang 邝志良 is smooth. The main weak link is the score, which is mostly just functional.
The film’s Chinese title roughly means “Taking Risks”.
CREDITS
Presented by Black Ant (Shanghai) Film (CN), Hehe (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Shannan Enlight Pictures (CN), Universe (Fujian) Cultural Development (CN), Dongtai Each Media (CN), Beijing MaxTimes Cultural Development (CN), Taiyang Chuanhe Entertainment (CN), White Horse Film (CN).
Script: Li Meng, Gan Jianyu, Yi Hui. Photography: Cheng Ma Zhiyuan. Editing: Kuang Zhiliang. Music: Yi Sang-yeol, Zhang Zhaoning. Music direction: Jiang Jianqiang, Li Ruoxi. Art direction: Yuan Feng. Styling: Song Ge. Sound: Jiang Jianqiang. Action: Choi Dong-heon. Artistic supervision: Tu Nan.
Cast: Da Peng [Dong Chengpeng] (Liu Xiaojun), Ou Hao (Xia Xi, younger brother), Li Meng (Zhang Qian), Sha Baoliang (Xia Tao, elder brother), Cao Bingkun (Wan Wei), Cao Weiyu (Wang Yong, police captain), Wulantuoya Duo (Chen Siqi), Zhang Ningjiang (Xiaowu, Wang Yong’s assistant), Xia En (Zhou Li, Wang Yong’s assistant), Li Shengye (Chen Zhongren, Chen Siqi’s father).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Competition), 21 Jun 2019.
Release: China, 30 Aug 2019.