Love Life Light
照明商店
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 98 mins.
Director: Cai Erduo 蔡耳朵 [Cai Jing 蔡婧].
Rating: 8/10.
Classy directing debut by former a.d. Cai Erduo, aka Cai Jing, is a boldly structured mix of horror, fantasy and optimism, with a strong script and technical package.
STORY
Jiangdong city, somewhere in China, the present day. (A young man [Zheng Kai] returns by bus every day from work late at night and finds the same woman [Hai Lu] sitting silently at the bus stop in the deserted road. This happens 13 times, and he finally invites her to a quiet place to talk. It does not end well for him.) Xu Nian (Zhang Ruonan), a nurse in a hospital’s intensive care unit, leaves her shift at 23:30. In a backstreet near her home she enters a shop selling light bulbs and lamps; while browsing, she vaguely recognises the owner (Liu Yijun), who says she should not have come. Hearing the sounds of an accident outside, she returns to the main road and comes across her boyfriend, Zheng Man (Bai Yufan), among the spectators. She had texted him earlier in the day but he had not replied. They walk back together to the block of flats they recently moved into (flat no. 405), and on the way meet other occupants – Zhu Xiaomei (Liu Yan) and her nine-year-old daughter Jiang Zhuzhu (Chen Sinuo) who live in no. 302, and doddery old Jiang Tao (Zhang Qi), 73, who lives in no. 207 and wanders around saying he must fetch his son from school. That night, Xu Nian has a nightmare about them. Strange things keep happening in the block of flats: small pools of water keep appearing on the floor of no. 405; a 23-year-old woman, Liu Yushan (Sun Meilin), who arrives in no. 106, appears to have two separate shadows; Xu Nian starts hearing a ringing sound that Zheng Man can’t hear; and Xu Nian sees Zhu Xiaomei dragging Jiang Zhuzhu’s unconscious body inside her flat. On Xu Nian’s recommendation, Liu Yushan, whose lights have been mysteriously going out, visits the lamp shop nearby, but is treated weirdly by the owner. In addition, Xu Nian keeps seeing a strange drunken man (Huang Chengcheng), covered in sand, who asks her about a woman and a girl, an old man, and two women. With the help of Zheng Man, who is finally convinced she’s not imagining things, Xu Nian decides to work out what is going on. They invite everyone to a meal on the roof; but that only raises more questions than it answers, and is also cut short by bad weather. Xu Nian visits the lamp shop again, and on the counter finds a box containing bulbs with people’s names on them. She runs back to the block of flats, can’t find anyone, and the goes back to the lamp shop.
REVIEW
A very stylish fantasy/mystery that begins like a horror movie and ends as a moving expression of love and remembrance, Love Life Light 照明商店 is a classy directorial debut by Cai Erduo 蔡耳朵 (“Cai the Ears”), nickname of Qingdao-born Cai Jing 蔡婧, 34, who began as a continuity girl and since the mid-teens has worked as an assistant director 副导演 or executive director 执行导演 on several notable films, often for directors Zhang Yibai 张一白 and Guan Hu 管虎. Boldly structured, with several major twists, it deserves an extra point for its sheer risk-taking, even if its main structural device only comes off by the skin of its teeth. A strong cast and top-of-the-line technical package – led by graceful work from d.p. Fan Chao 范超, whose own directing debut, Give Me a Ride 出门在外, was released a few months later – more than do justice to a strong script by Jiao Tingting 焦婷婷, from a manga by popular South Korean online cartoonist Gang Do-yeong 강도영 | 康道永 (aka Gang Pul 강풀 | 姜草 or Kang Full). Box office late last year was a solid RMB 275 million.
Cai’s films as assistant or executive director include I Belonged to You 从你的全世界路过 (2016), My People, My Country 我和我的祖国 (2019), The Eight Hundred 八佰 (2020), The Sacrifice 金刚川 (2020) and The Day We Lit Up the Sky 燃野少年的天空 (2021). She (as B-unit director) and Jiao (as one of several writers) were both involved in the train wreck that was Ten Years of Loving You 十年一品温如言 (2022), the directorial debut of noted d.p. Zhao Fei 赵非, though it’s unclear where the blame really lies for that movie, so it’s probably best forgotten. Shandong-born Jiao, 35, is back on the form she showed in the first two solo features of director Han Tian 韩天 – Only the Wind Knows 那一场呼啸而过的青春 (2017) and My Love 你的婚礼 (2021) – and Cai and d.p. Fan are with her all the way.
The film starts with a neat horror sequence that sets the offbeat tone to follow and provides cameos for an almost unrecognisable Zheng Kai 郑恺 (in serious spectacles) and TV actress Hai Lu 海陆. The film’s main character is then revealed as Xu Nian, a nurse in a hospital’s intensive care unit who’s recently moved with her boyfriend into a block of flats which has some seriously weird other tenants (a mother and young daughter; a doddery old guy; an introverted young woman). Nearby is a new shop selling lamps and light bulbs called 照明商店 (the film’s title, literally “The Lighting Shop”); the owner, whose face looks familiar to Xu Nian, is seriously weird.
The first half piles mystery upon mystery, in a spooky way, as Xu Nian tries to work out what’s going on and begins to doubt her own sanity. At the 40-odd-minute mark the scriot pulls its biggest twist and then basically sets about explaining what the audience has been watching, the various characters’ backgrounds, and the story till then – all in a semi-magical way. Just when this structural trick is becoming trying, the script pulls another big twist at the 80-minute point that leads to its underlying theme – if you remember someone, they never really leave you – powerfully coming to the fore. Cai and Jiao get away with it by the skin of their teeth.
Unexpectedly, the final moments are very moving, thanks partly to a terrific scene with a long single take on Xu Nian’s face while eating a meal her boyfriend has cooked for her. Largely a TVD actress, Wenzhou-born Zhang Ruonan 章若楠, 27, has not been that impressive so far in her film career (Cry Me a Sad River 悲伤逆流成河, 2018; The End of Endless Love 如果声音不记得, 2020; My Love); but here she makes an involving lead and really delivers in the closing moments, helped by Jiao’s script, Fan’s photography, the production design by the experienced Lin Mu 林木, and a versatile score by Peng Weihan 彭玮瀚 that moves back and forth from suspenseful/mysterious to optimistic/sunny.
As Xu Nian’s boyfriend, Bai Yufan 白宇帆 is okay, in a wide-eyed supportive way. Stealing every scene she’s in, however, is Liu Yan 柳岩 (so good in the recent Life Hotel 来福大酒店, 2024) as the single mother trying to cope with a lively young daughter. Good in a much quieter way is Sun Meilin 孙美林 (the memorable school bully in All These Years 这么多年, 2023), as the introverted new tenant who has a tangled emotional life – conveniently disguised in the script, it would seem, as a problem between sisters.
Shooting took place, in early 2023, around Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, eastern China, but could have been shot anywhere as the film is largely interiors. For the record, in the main titles Cai signs the director credit with both her Chinese nickname (蔡耳朵) and her pinyin real name (Cai Jing).
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Colorful Enlight (Yangzhou) Pictures (CN).
Script: Jiao Tingting, Cao Yi. Manga: Gang Pul. Photography: Fan Chao. Editing: Zhang Huadu, Wu Yiyue, Chen Cheng. Music: Peng Weihan. Production design: Lin Mu. Art direction: Zhao Ziran. Costumes: Cao Li, Fu Xueqiu. Styling: Guo Shenshen [Guo Wen], Sui Yimeng. Sound: Zhang Jing, Du Duzhi, Jiang Yizhen. Car stunts: Du Zihao. Visual effects: Tang Ning. Executive direction: Wu Yongjie.
Cast: Zhang Ruonan (Xu Nian), Bai Yufan (Zheng Man), Liu Yijun (shop owner; ICU doctor), Huang Chengcheng (Li Shanbao, lorry driver), Liu Yan (Zhu Xiaomei), Zhang Qi (Jiang Tao), Sun Meilin (Liu Yushan), Chen Sinuo (Jiang Zhuzhu), Zheng Kai (Xianmin, man at bus stop), Sun Qian (Liu Jiayi, Liu Yushan’s elder sister), Cao Bingkun (Jiang Liang, Jiang Tao’s son), Hai Lu (Zhiying, woman at bus stop), Xu Tongxin (Xiaotong, nurse), Liu Huiyi (ICU female supervisor), Gong Jinguo (ICU male supervisor), Miao Yibo (Xiaoyi, nurse), Cui Hanwen (head nurse), Luo Junxi (young Jiang Liang), Zhou Chao (young Jiang Tao), Cai Erduo (Xu Nian’s psychologist), Zhang Jing (voice of Jiang Zhuzhu’s father).
Release: China, 8 Dec 2023.