Secret
秘不可言
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 90 mins.
Director: Cao Yong 曹涌 [Cao Yong 曹勇].
Rating: 5/10.
Intriguing, well-mounted psychodrama-cum-mystery starts well but becomes scarcely credible later on.
STORY
Qindao, 15 Dec 2015. To celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary with a dinner, businessman Xiang Ze (Zhang Zhiyao) arrives at an old house in the countryside that his wife, fashion designer Shu Min (Xia Qing), uses as a quiet workplace. But Shu Min has disappeared, the dinner table has been wrecked, and there’s a bloodied knife on the floor. Xiang Ze calls the police, telling the inspector, Qin Tao (Fan Shaohuang), that he last saw Shu Min that afternoon and had arrived back at the house about 20:00. He says both of Shu Min’s parents are dead. Later, driving in the city, Xiang Ze is beaten up by some heavies after jumping a red light. He’s visited by Wen Lan (Zhao Cong), the former girlfriend of Qin Tao, who loving attends to his split lip. Next day Qin Tao confirms that the blood found at the scene of the crime was Shu Min’s and takes Xiang Ze in for questioning. Alone in the house that night, Wen Lan is scared when the lights flicker. The next evening she is also scared when the shower malfunctions, going on and off. Qin Tao comes by and sarcastically congratulates her on so quickly becoming mistress of a large house after changing the men in her life. She asks when Xiang Ze will be released but he says he doesn’t know. That night the lights in the house go out and she faints from shock when she appears to see a skeleton in the dark. By next morning Xiang Ze has returned and is looking after her. He says there’s still no news of Shu Min; when Wen Lan says the house is haunted, he says it’s simply because of the old wiring. (Xiang Ze and Shu Min had been living in Shanghai when he’d arranged for a transfer to Qindao, her hometown, to help her relax. Initially she’d not welcomed the move, but she’d finally agreed. After arriving, Shu Min had visited her mother’s grave and started crying. The couple had lived in a modern flat in the city and, after a couple of months under Xiang Ze’s management, the company’s Qindao branch had thrived. But Shu Min had not been happy when she saw him chatting up another woman [Gulikezi Azezi] at a company reception. Her pill-taking had worsened. Then one day Xiang Ze had surprised her by renting the old house in the countryside as a quiet studio where she could work; initially she hadn’t seem grateful but she had finally agreed and Xiang Ze had had it renovated. However, Shu Min’s suspicions that Xiang Ze was having an affaire had only hardened and one night she’d followed him to a hotel where she saw him meet a woman. Then one day, during the renovation work, she had uncovered an old key that opened a secret door to a hidden room.)
REVIEW
Shot some six years ago (around Qingdao, northern China) and finally released at the end of 2021, Secret 秘不可言 is a well-made psychodrama-cum-mystery that has an intriguing first hour followed by an explanatory third act that’s way off the scale. Following a tortuous production process (see below), the film finally emerged as the directorial debut of Mainlander Cao Yong 曹勇 – here using the homonym 曹涌 – who’s worked as a camera operator on several prestigious movies (Dying to Survive 我不是药神, 2018; Love Will Tear Us Apart 我要我们在一起, 2021) and was also d.p. on this one. Creatively produced 监制 by and starring Hong Kong-based Zhang Zhiyao 张智尧, 40 at the time, it’s well worth a look for its first hour but made no impact on release, taking a microscopic RMB1.5 million.
Born in Taiwan, raised in Brazil and based in Hong Kong, Zhang is a jobbing actor of the past two decades who’s best known for a host of TV costume action dramas, though he did co-star with Feng Delun 冯德伦 [Stephen Fung] in the fluffy Golden Harvest action comedy Sunshine Cops 阳光警察 (1999) and, before making Secret, had just starred in the (flop) Mainland rom-com Come Back ♥ Love 约定倒计时 (2015). He’s okay, but nothing special, as an apparently caring husband who moves from Shanghai to the (fictional) Qindao, hometown of his tightly-wound wife, so she can relax and concentrate on her work as a fashion designer. The first mystery is that the wife doesn’t seem that keen to make the move, and is perpetually downcast about some problem or another; she seems even less keen at first to work in an old country house that the husband then rents for her to work in peace and quiet. And then she starts thinking he’s having an affaire.
The script, by a certain Wang Xing 汪星, throws up plenty of unexplained people and relationships, especially in the early going, and is almost a textbook in how to misdirect an audience’s attention. The wife’s sudden disappearance one evening (flight? murder? kidnapping?) makes the film look like a crime drama centred on the husband; but as other characters come into play the focus shifts away from him to the ex-girlfriend of the investigating cop, and then to a female gym trainer, before finally (via a long flashback) centring on the absent wife. The precise, immaculately lit and composed visuals – and the film’s confident lack of rush – give the impression the movie knows where it’s going. And the first major twist, about an hour in, cleverly moves the goalposts on the whole story. However, on a practical level it’s not entirely thought through, and the second major twist that explains everything is scarcely credible.
The rest of the cast is largely fine and tends to throw Zhang himself into the shade. Then in his early 40s, Hong Kong action veteran Fan Shaohuang 樊少皇 [Louis Fan] is believable as the police detective but it’s the female roles that drive the picture, especially Qingdao native Xia Qing 夏青 (aka Xia Yiwen 夏艺文), then 40, suitably mysterious as the wife and Zhao Cong 赵聪, then 31, as the cop’s seemingly manipulative ex. Art direction of the old house by Wang Jiguo 王继国 and costuming (especially of the designer wife) are both characterful.
The start of shooting was announced in mid-Dec 2015, under the title Tell No One 不可告人, with Zhang as creative producer 监制 and his own KZ Studio co-producing with Xinyiran Pictures. The cast was as below, but the director was announced as Zhang Ronghua 张荣华. Three years later, in late 2018, the film was certified for Mainland release and after various title changes, including Ghost Wife 鬼妻之秘不可言, and two abandoned release dates in Aug and Oct 2021, it finally hit screens in Dec 2021 under the present titles but with two different presenting companies and direction/photography credited to Cao Yong 曹涌. The new Chinese title means “Unspeakable Mystery”.
CREDITS
Presented by Qingdao Haihuangxing Film (CN), Beijing Zonsir Culture Communication (CN). Produced by Qingdao Haihuangxing Film (CN).
Script: Wang Xing. Photography: Cao Yong. Editing: Li Xiaolong, Yuan Hongli. Music: uncredited. Art direction: Wang Jiguo. Costumes: Luo Jinlan. Sound: Bai Chuandong, Chen Chen, Liu Liu. Special effects: Huang Lujia, Luo Bo. Executive direction: Long Huaizhong.
Cast: Zhang Zhiyao (Xiang Ze), Xia Qing [Xia Yiwen] (Shu Min), Zhao Cong (Wen Lan), Fan Shaohuang [Louis Fan] (Qin Tao, police detective), Yang Xue (Wei, doctor), Gulikezi Aizezi (Shen Feifei), Ren Wei (Shu Yuan, Shu Min’s father).
Release: China, 10 Dec 2021.