Sister

我的姐姐

China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 125 mins.

Director: Yin Ruoxin 殷若昕.

Rating: 8/10.

Impressive family drama, with strong playing by teen actress Zhang Zifeng, centred on a young woman and her baby brother when their parents suddenly die.

STORY

Chengdu city, Sichuan province, southwest China, 5 Aug 2019. A couple die in a vehicle collision and, via the call history on the man’s phone, the police contact his daughter, An Ran (Zhang Zifeng). They ask her why the only picture they found was of the couple and their young son, with none of her. At the funeral she sees her six-year-old brother An Ziheng (Jin Yaoyuan), who was born after she left for university and whom she had only seen very occasionally. After the funeral, the family discuss the possibility of An Ran raising An Ziheng, as his parents lived in a rented state flat and he has no property to his name. An Ran, however, has a school-district flat in her name, though at present the daughter (Sun Jialing) of her paternal aunt, An Rongrong (Zhu Yuanyuan), is occupying it. An Ran, who is training to be a nurse, tells An Rongrong she wants to go to Beijing for further studies but her aunt says it’s her duty to look after her little brother. The family says that if she won’t do her duty she should hand over the flat she owns. A huge family fight breaks out. After studying CCTV, the police apportion no blame for the collision; a post mortem showed An Ran’s father had a heart attack just prior to the crash and he had had heart surgery six months earlier – something An Ran didn’t know. An Rongrong tells An Ran how, when she was younger and just starting work, she had supported her younger brother (An Ran’s father) through vocational school by giving him some money every week from her wages. An Ran explains how she’s supported herself through university for four years and always taken care of herself, so why should she now have to raise a younger brother she hardly knows? Doing so would ruin her chances of a proper career, and she wants a child of her own in the future. She tells An Rongrong to raise him. An Rongrong, however, has a grown son (Chen Yongsheng) living at home and a sick husband (He Qiang), as well as a volatile daughter and a shop to run. An Ran’s boyfriend, Zhao Ming (Liang Jingkang), who is training to be a doctor at the same hospital, is supportive of her, and also wants to go to Beijing for further studies. An Ran moves into the flat that is in her name and proposes an agreement with An Rongrong that they put An Ziheng out for adoption. Reluctantly, An Rongrong signs the agreement but a fight breaks out when she accuses An Ran of causing her father’s heart attack. An Ziheng stays with An Ran temporarily but the boy is constantly argumentative. An Ran asks her maternal uncle, Wu Dongfeng (Xiao Yang), a no-good gambler, to meet the boy after school, as she has to have dinner with Zhao Ming’s parents. The school pick-up goes badly when Wu Dongfeng, who wants An Ran to sue the other driver in the accident (Duan Bowen), confronts the man outside the school and accuses him of being drunk that day. The evening goes badly, but it’s the start of a new relationship between An Ran and her brother. She tells him their parents are both dead and shows him their grave; and he asks her why their father beat her.

REVIEW

An unexpected hit of the spring season, Sister 我的姐姐 creates two hours of very involving drama from the most ordinary of everyday events. Centring on a young nursing student who, after the sudden death of her parents, is faced with bringing up a baby brother she hardly knows, and thereby imperilling her whole independent life and career, it’s a film that grows on the viewer incrementally as characters and relationships evolve. A true mirror of Mainland life and manners without being at all documentary-like or kitchen-sinky, this second feature by director Yin Ruoxin 殷若昕 is one of the most impressive films of the year to date. Its box-office take of RMB860 million has been astonishing for a movie with no major stars or other commercial attractions.

A graduate of the Central Academy of Drama, Yin, 34, worked as writer and director on stage productions and TV dramas before shooting her first feature, high-school drama Farewell My Lad 再见，少年, in 2019 in Yunnan, southern China. Originally known as 南方，有雾 (literally, “In the South, There’s Mist”), and as White Sun in English, it was co-written with You Xiaoying 游晓颖 (Love Education 相爱相亲, 2017), who was to go on to write Sister, and also starred teen actress Zhang Zifeng 张子枫, who was to go on to star in Sister. Originally set to be released on 16 April (two weeks after Sister), Farewell was suddenly pulled three days before, for “technical reasons”. It’s currently pencilled in for an August release in the Mainland. [In the event it was released on 27 Aug 2021, but performed very poorly at the box office.]

Sister has none of the over-egging that afflicted Love Education. Developed by Taiwan-born director Zhang Aijia 张艾嘉 [Sylvia Chang] from an original script by You based on her own family story, Love Education tried to be too many things and ended up without a strong dramatic spine. By comparison, Sister, set in You’s home city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, is a model of spareness and dramatic focus: though there’s no doubt that An Ran (Zhang Zifeng) is the central character, the audience is let only very slowly into her life and thoughts, let alone those of her aunts, uncles and cousins. In an early scene at her parents’ funeral, a mass of relatives are suddenly revealed and it takes a while to sort them out; so, too, a sudden reference by An Ran to the “lameness” she was born with (but not visible now), whose psychological scarring is dealt with later in fuzzy flashbacks to her childhood. In fact, details are revealed so gradually that it’s not until half-an-hour in that the audience is even told An Ran’s name, let alone the fact that she and her boyfriend actually work at the same hospital.

The effect is like being parachuted into an extended family and slowly getting to know them. As such, everyone seems to evolve and can be viewed from more than one perspective: the paternal aunt who initially seems to be a nagging pain becomes more of an ally to An Ran; a no-good maternal uncle, who wiles away his life gambling and is serially unreliable, is shown to be a sympathetic loner; An Ran’s boyfriend, initially a model of supportiveness, becomes less so under family pressure; and so on. This gives the film an amazing richness beyond its main spine of the enforced relationship between An Ran and her six-year-old brother, An Ziheng. Born after she left home – to support herself in her studies after becoming estranged from her father – the baby brother is practically a stranger to her. As spoiled and manipulative as An Ran is stubborn and independent, he first rebels against her and then, when An Ran finally tells him their parents are never coming back, tries every trick in the book to get her to abandon her dream of further studies in Beijing and not put him out for adoption.

It would be reasonable to assume that, in a Chinese film, the choice between personal wishes and family duty would never be in doubt; but You and Yin take the nailbiter right to the limit, to a point where An Ran’s decision could go either way. Like everyone else in the film, she’s neither a hero nor a villain, just a rational, independent millennial who had a troubled childhood and is used to looking out for herself. The push-pull emotions that resonate throughout the film help drive the drama – to a point, 90 minutes in, where An Ran undergoes a moment of transfiguration (excitingly underlined by the propulsive music of Gao Xiaoyang 高小阳) following a talk with her aunt.

Though the film is never flabby, it could be trimmed by 10-15 minutes without losing anything: the final half-hour is taken up with several scenes that seem designed to showcase Zhang as an actress rather than truly advance the plot. Otherwise there’s little to carp about. After youth comedies like How Are You 李雷和韩梅梅 昨日重现 (2017) and Go Brother 快把我哥带走 (2018), and her sad sparkiness as the teen daughter in Last Letter 你好，之华 (2018), Sister is a career-changer for Henan-born Zhang, now 19, with her showing an emotional range her blank looks, à la Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨, give no clue to. It’s a performance that erases her disappointing turn, opposite Bai Baihe 白百何, in Begin, Again 亲爱的 新年好 (2019), though that was more the fault of the script than herself. Zhang teams easily with Hong Kong-born Jin Yaoyuan 金遥源 [Kim Darren Yowon] as the young, needy tyke, and holds her own against older players like Zhu Yuanyuan 朱媛媛 (the mother in turn-of-the-year hit A Little Red Flower 送你一朵小红花, 2020) as the aunt, Xiao Yang 肖央 (Sheep without a Shepherd 误杀, 2019) in a rare non-comedic turn as the no-good uncle, and Duan Bowen 段博文 (Beijing Flickers 有种, 2012; The Left Ear 左耳, 2015) as the sympathetic other driver in the accident.

Art direction and styling by Du Guangyu 杜光宇 (The Ark of Mr. Chow 少年班, 2015; My Dear Liar 受益人, 2019) have a convincingly natural look, with small felicities like the gradual change in An Ran’s clothing from tomboyish trousers to feminine skirts as she becomes her own person, with no more statements to make. Gao’s music, though sparely used, is a big partner in the film’s structure, becoming warmer around the half-hour mark when sister and brother first start to bond, with her giving him a piggyback home. As in The Crossing 过春天 (2018) and Back to the Wharf 风平浪静 (2020), d.p. Piao Songri 朴松日 creates drama from everyday settings, with largely hand-held camerawork that’s subtly composed and always well-lit. Cutting by the experienced Zhu Lin 朱琳 is mobile and focused on the performances. The film was shot during Jul-Sep 2020 in Chengdu itself. The Chinese title means “My Big Sister”.

CREDITS

Presented by Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN), Tianjin Turan Movie (CN), Zhejiang Hengdian Film (CN), China Film (CN), Shanghai Taopiaopiao Movie & TV Culture (CN), Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN), Horgos Excuseme Film & TV Culture (CN), Dream Sky Film (CN), Beijing Lian Ray Pictures (CN), Guava Pictures (CN), Beijing Zhuye China Culture Communication (CN), Horgos Chenglin Media (CN), Beijing Lian Ray Muma Pictures (CN). Produced by TJ Turan Movie (CN), Lian Ray (Shanghai) Pictures (CN).

Script: You Xiaoying. Photography: Piao Songri. Editing: Zhu Lin. Original music: Gao Xiaoyang. Music: Gao Xiaoyang, Gao Tianxiang. Art direction: Du Guangyu. Costumes: Wang Lin. Styling: Du Guangyu. Sound: Zhou Lei, Wu Lei. Action: Nie Jun. Visual effects: Zhang Chao, Zhang Chunmiao (Beijing Soar Dragon of Legend). Executive direction: Zhang Zhengquan.

Cast: Zhang Zifeng (An Ran), Xiao Yang (Wu Dongfeng, An Ran’s maternal uncle), Zhu Yuanyuan (An Rongrong, An Ran’s paternal aunt), Duan Bowen (Zhong Yong, car driver), Liang Jingkang (Zhao Ming, An Ran’s boyfriend), Sun Jialing (An Rongrong’s daughter), Jin Yaoyuan [Kim Darren Yowon] (An Ziheng, An Ran’s younger borother), Wang Shengdi (young An Ran), Peng Yang (Chen, kindergarten teacher), Chen Yongsheng (An Rongrong’s son), Huang Wen (Chen, hospital doctor), Wang Liyu (Keke), Yang Yutong (Yaya, Zhong Yong’s young daughter), He Qiang (An Rongrong’s husband), Zhu Xiyuan (An Ran’s mother), Li Miao (An Ran’s father), Wang Shi (potential adoptive father), Wang Jin (potential adoptive mother), Lin Hang (tourist at temple), Quan Guanbin (bridegroom), Su Aiting (Zhao Ming’s father), Tao Lin (Zhao Ming’s mother).

Release: China, 2 Apr 2021.