Busted Water Pipes
爆水管
China, 2026, colour, 2.35:1. 103 mins.
Director: Zhou Difei 周涤啡.
Rating: 5/10.
Though watchable, this crime caper movie has an over-stuffed plot and can’t decide whether it’s a comedy, a black comedy or a drama.
STORY
Kingstown, capital of the Kingdom of Rohnam, somewhere in Southeast Asia, the present day. A SWAT team, led by Yu Dahai (Peng Yuyan), 29, is called out when a former SWAT captain, angry after being sacked for no reason after 10 years, takes a mother and child hostage in a block of flats and threatens to set off a bomb. Yu Dahai’s team breaks into a building but only too late realises it’s been given the wrong address, actually the flat opposite; the terrorist detonates the bomb, killing himself, the mother and child and injuring 19 others. Yu Dahai is wrongly blamed for the incident but his superior, Shannon (Prem Yadav), who is about to stand as a senator, makes a deal with the court which involves Yu Dahai being temporarily transferred to a remote location until things cool down. Chapter One: Heping “Police” Hero 第一章 和平“警”英. Yu Dahai arrives in the remote township of Heping with his adopted baby daughter whom he saved from the wrecked building. The police station has chickens in it, the township is riddled with crime, and police chief Ge (Yang Haoyu) and his two staff, Yuan Dan (Huang Yan) and bespectacled Pengpeng (Xu Dong), just want a quiet life. Yu Dahai sets about singlehandedly cleaning up Heping. Seven years later the crime rate is nil, but Shannon, now a senator, has reneged on his promise to transfer Yu Dahai back to Kingstown. Now at primary school, Yu Dahai’s daughter, Yu Xiaohe (Yang Chenxi), has imbibed his sense of justice and beats up any wrongdoers among the pupils. Heping is one of several towns lauded for its zero crime rate; but then Shannon uses that as excuse to save government money by closing down their police stations. So Yu Dahai, Yuan Dan and Pengpeng decide to invent some crime to justify their continued existence. Chapter Two: Rookie “Bombers” 第二章 初来“炸盗”. Luo Siji (Ai Lun), a wanted member of a family of tomb raiders who’s set himself up as a health guru in Heping, is visited by his aged uncle Luo Yin (Zhang Qi) and other family members. Luo Yin wants Luo Siji to help rob the tomb of famous Qing dynasty female pirate Chen Yisao, who reportedly had chests filled with gold on her ship. Luo Siji is reluctant to become involved but recommends an abandoned warehouse in the western part of town to store their gear, which includes explosives. That same night another member of the family, Luo Siji’s psychotic cousin Luo Hao (Zhou You), arrives, after escaping from prison; en route he’s also murdered a member of the ruthless Kingstown money-lending gang Armed Accountant & Associates, led by the Ma family, who had sent one of their men to track down a debtor, Gao Li (Chen Xianyu), the son-in-law of Shannon. As the Luos move their gear into the abandoned warehouse, it also happens to be the same night and same place that Yu Dahai & Co. have chosen to stage a fake bombing incident. The warehouse blows up and the Luos’ equipment is destroyed; Luo Siji also tells them that the tomb they want to raid is situated immediately below the police station. Yu Dahai realises something fishy is going on with the buried tomb, so he and his two colleagues start digging up the floor of the police station to find if it exists. In doing so they puncture a mains pipe, which sends a huge waterspout into the air. Seeing it, Luo Yin realises that all they need is the help of a plumber to find the tomb. Chapter Three: Burst Water Pipe 第三章 爆水管. The Luos kidnap plumber Li Baibai (Bu Yu) and take his place, secretly digging a tunnel where Yu Dahai had punctured the pipe in the police station. Meanwhile, Yu Dahai and his colleagues, who want to find the tomb for their own financial reasons, start secretly digging their own tunnel behind the police station. And then the heavily-armed AAA gang arrives, looking for Gao Li. Chapter Four: Meeting by Chance on a Narrow Road 第四章 狭路相逢. Things get even crazier over the next couple of days with a standoff between the three policemen and the Luo gang, the two tunnels meeting underground, Yu Xiaohe coming to look for her father, and finally Shannon making an official visit to Heping to celebrate the township’s zero crime rate and the police station’s closure.
REVIEW
Busted Water Pipes 爆水管 is a crime caper movie that can’t decide whether it’s a comedy, a black comedy or a drama. Set in a fictional kingdom in Southeast Asia and starring Taiwan actor Peng Yuyan 彭于晏 [Eddie Peng] as a SWAT operative who’s transferred to a provincial backwater and gets involved in a tomb robbery underneath the township’s police station, it keeps swerving from knockabout humour to often dark violence as the over-stuffed script navigates a plot that seems to delight in its own chaos. Though the result is watchable, it lacks the rigour needed for this kind of caper movie, as well as a consistent tone and an actor more at home in comedy than Peng, who’s better known for either rom-com or tough-guy roles. Co-starring wacky Mainland comedian Ai Lun 艾伦, it took a polite RMB132 million prior to Chinese New Year.
Writer-director Zhou Difei 周涤啡, 41, was born in China and studied film at the UK’s Edinburgh University, making several shorts during 2008-14 and subsequently working on the production side of films like 3D fantasy Into the Rainbow 奇迹：追逐彩虹 (2017, a China/New Zealand co-production), wannabe comedy Crazy Alien 疯狂的外星人 (2019) and PRC flag-waver My People, My Country 我和我的祖国 (2019), as well as sci-fi blockbuster The Wandering Earth II 流浪地球2 (2023), on which he was the overseas unit’s director. Shot in Yunnan, southern China – repping the fictional kingdom of Rohnam, largely populated by Chinese – Busted Water Pipes is Zhou’s first feature film.
The opening sets the uncertain tone as Peng’s character, Yu Dahai, leads a SWAT team to take out a bomb terrorist holding a family hostage but is mistakenly sent to the wrong address, causing all sorts of havoc and destruction. His ambitious boss, who’s about to enter politics, throws him under the bus and exiles him to a remote township (Heping, literally “Peace”) till things cool down. Seven years later he’s cleaned up the town but is still marooned there – and then a family of tomb raiders arrives to rob the legendary tomb of a Qing dynasty female pirate that’s underneath the police station.
The idea of loot inconveniently buried beneath a building goes back to UK crime comedies like A Fire Has Been Arranged (1935, a department store) and The Big Job (1965, a police station), as well as US action comedy Blue Streak (1999). In Pipes, this plot strand only surfaces around the 40-minute mark; until then, the focus has been on Yu Dahai’s predicament, not only having been betrayed by his former boss but also about to lose his job as there’s no need for any police in a crime-free town. Just as he wasn’t personally responsible for the SWAT team cock-up, he’s also unwittingly caused his own demise by being too good at his job.
Once the family of tomb robbers arrives, the film starts to become seriously over-populated, with the gang’s eccentric, ageing leader, two sidekicks who speak in thick, northeast China accents, a murderous relative who’s just escaped from prison, and another relative, Luo Siji (“Four Seasons Luo”), a wanted criminal who’s become a trendy health guru in the town. Add in another gang arriving from the capital, as well as expanded roles and subplots for Yu Dahai’s police colleagues, and the movie becomes way too busy for its own good. As the second gang – with business suits and serious weaponry – and the psycho escapee from prison become involved, the shifts in tone become ever more extreme, especially in the dark final half-hour, to a point where Yu Dahai’s character becomes lost in the general anarchy.
A small symptom of the anarchy in the screenplay – the work of five people, including Chong Zheng 崇正, director Zhou and Jiao Yufeng 焦裕峰 (gay drama The Third Country 第三国度, 2017) – is the role of Yu Dahai’s young adopted daughter, who’s established early on as a feisty kid who beats up any no-good classmates but isn’t exploited at all in the film’s finale. On the acting side, Ai Lun as the trendy health guru lets loose with his usual exaggerated, campy style, while the rest of the cast all give characterful performances without any really funny standouts. In the film’s creepiest role, as the psycho ex-convict who just loves killing people, Zhou You 周游 (oddball comedy Lobster Cop 龙虾刑警, 2018; the lead in indie Striding into the Wind 野马分鬃, 2020) is the most memorable.
Technically, the film is well staged, with a big action finale and a strong music score by Liu Tao 刘韬 when it doesn’t momentarily slip from symphonic to pop-rock. The Chinese title means “Burst Water Pipe”, referring to the mains pipe that is accidentally punctured during some tunneling.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Taopiaopiao Film & TV Culture (CN), Hanzhang Zhencheng (Beijing) Culture Communication (CN), Shanghai Ascent Entertainment Group (CN), Hainan Ordovician Pictures (CN), Domo Media (CN). Produced by Shanghai Taopiaopiao Film & TV Culture (CN), Hainan Ordovician Pictures (CN).
Script: Chong Zheng, Zhou Difei, Jiao Yufeng, Wu Huipei, Wu Chentai. Photography: Deng Xingmai. Editing: Huang Shan. Music: Liu Tao. Art direction: Meng Shaohui. Costumes: Ma Yuechao. Styling: Li Shanwei. Sound: Zhao Gujin. Action: Zhang Ding. Special effects: Zhang Tao. Visual effects: Mi Chunlin, Liu Jiacheng. Executive direction: Zhou Yifei.
Cast: Peng Yuyan [Eddie Peng] (Yu Dahai), Ai Lun (Luo Siji), Zhou You (Luo Hao), Yan Peilun (Niu Dalun), Yang Haoyu (Ge, police chief), Jiang Xueming (Xiaoma, Da Ma’s younger brother), Fu Hang (monk), Pan Binlong (Tiezi, pipeline supervisor), Bu Yu (Li Baibai, plumber), Zhang Qi (Luo Yin, Luo gang leader), Huang Yan (Yuan Dan, policeman), Xu Dong (Pengpeng, bespectacled policeman), Yang Zhen (Luo Ma), Yang Chenxi (Yu Xiaohe, Yu Dahai’s adopted daughter), Li Haoxuan (Da Ma, head of Armed Accountant & Associates), Chen Xuanyu (Gao Li), Zhou Yanchen (Fur Seal commander), Prem Yadav (Shannon, senator), Jing Ci (Shannon’s secretary), Liu Yichun (Chen Yisao, female pirate), Ai Ran (TV newscaster).
Release: China, 23 Jan 2026.