Under the Light
坚如磐石
China, 2023, colour, 2.35:1, 127 mins.
Director: Zhang Yimou 张艺谋.
Rating: 7/10.
Stygian drama of municipal corruption and deadly powerplay has a terrific first half but, despite the strong cast, loses traction thereafter.
STORY
Jinjiang city, China, the present day, 23 May. In the city centre a crazed man, Kong Sanshun (Wang Shun), holds a bus full of people hostage with a bomb. Police forces assemble and the vice-mayor, Zheng Gang (Zhang Guoli), persuades him to let the women and children go. Kong Sanshun accuses Zheng Gang of being a “bad man” in the city’s government and wants everyone to hear it. Zheng Gang persuades Kong Sanshun to hand over the bomb but as he approaches the bus to collect it the bomb explodes. Zheng Gang survives but the bomber and hostages die. Later that evening Zheng Gang’s adopted son, Su Jianming (Lei Jiayin), deputy director of the police’s technical department, accepts a dinner invitation – against his father’s wishes – from Li Zhitian (Yu Hewei), president of Jinwu Group, the city’s most powerful conglomerate with interests in property, entertainment and tourism. To demonstrate his power, Li Zhitian deliberately humiliates an old business friend, Bei’an Development District head Li Jinshu, at the dinner. Su Jianming protests and gets up to leave, and Li Zhitian tells him to let his father know that he, Li Zhitian, had nothing to do with the hostage drama. Next day Li Zhitian tells senior executives at Jinwu that he’s retiring and is nominating his future son-in-law, David (Sun Yizhou), fiance of his daughter Li Sha (Chen Tong), as his successor. Jinwu vice-president Tang Danian (Tian Yu), the only other survivor of the company’s five founders, agrees. That evening, at a private dinner, Zheng Gang gets Li Zhitian to hand over an incriminating video of Li Jinshu. Zheng Gang adds that he’ll prove Li Zhitian was connected in some way with the hostage drama. Meanwhile, at a police meeting, Su Jianming proposes the theory that the bomb was actually detonated by someone else, without the bomber’s knowledge, and that the whole event was staged to blacken Zheng Gang’s name. Su Jianming says he can find out who detonated the bomb by 21:00 next evening, and department head Liu Bo (Xu Yajun) gives his okay. Su Jianming and his small team, comprising ex-girlfriend Li Huilin (Zhou Dongyu) and the young Sun Heyang (Xu Zili), find evidence that a suspicious character, Liu Mingli (Chen Ruo), legal representative of Xinzhong Commerce, had taken a hotel room overlooking the crime scene the previous day. Against the wishes of some older colleagues, Liu Bo lets Su Jianming head up the investigation. He also lets Zheng Gang know of the appointment. Meanwhile, a municpal anti-corruption task force headed by Chen Weimin (Chen Daoming) arrives to investigate Zheng Gang and his staff. Su Jianming and his team visit Jinwu Group’s offices and let Li Zhitian and his executives know that they’re looking for Liu Mingli, whose construction company has an equity link with Jinwu. Su Jianming pretends he already knows where Liu Mingli is, and a cat-and-mouse game ensues between him and Li Zhitian. Su Jianming and his team find Liu Mingli but the latter is suddenly run over and seriously hospitalised. Meanwhile, Li Zhitian’s pregnant daughter Li Sha returns from abroad to get married to David. It then turns out that, unknown to his wife He Xiuli (Chen Chong), Zheng Gang is protecting a young woman, Yang Xiaowei (Lin Boyang), but he will not reveal to her on whose orders. Also, Zheng Gang lets Li Zhitian know that Liu Mingli will confess everything he knows to the police at 19:00 the following evening in the hospital. Zheng Gang later meets Li Zhitian and says that, unless Li Zhitian signs a contract favouring a business friend, Gao Jin (Jiao Gang), he will implicate Li Zhitian in the whole hostage drama. Li Zhitian reluctantly agrees. But he’s not finished yet in his battle with Zheng Gang.
REVIEW
A stygian tale of municipal corruption and deadly powerplay, as a powerful businessman and vice-mayor go head to head and the city’s police force struggles to keep up, Under the Light 坚如磐石 has a very impressive first hour but gradually loses traction in the second as the plotting gets thicker and thicker and obstructs the human drama. The second feature this year from veteran Mainland director Zhang Yimou 张艺谋 – following his costume drama Full River Red 满江红 that took a giant RMB4.54 billion for the top spot so far this year – Light has also performed very well, with RMB1.29 billion after 43 days for the ninth spot as it comes near the end of its run. (Final tally was RMB1.35 billion.) Strongly cast down the line, it’s notable for a terrific performance by Yu Hewei 于和伟 – largely a TV actor but notable in Zhang’s earlier Cliff Walkers 悬崖之上 (2021) – as an utterly corrupt, utterly arrogant businessman.
Though Light is Zhang’s second release this year, it was actually shot four years ago, from May to Sep 2019, between One Second 一秒钟 (2020) and Cliff Walkers. (As soon as Zhang finished shooting Light, he did reshoots in October for One Second and started shooting Cliff Walkers in December.) The reason for its delayed release remains a mystery, as the finished film’s anti-corruption theme certainly aligns with present government policy. Another mystery is a closing intertitle that celebrates the country’s Anti-Organised Crime Law, which only came into effect on 1 May 2022, some time after when the film should have originally been released.
All that apart, Light still has much to commend it and just manages to scrape a 7/10, ahead of Cliff Walkers and Snipers 狙击手 (2022), thanks to its powerful first half, some bravura acting moments, and its striking look. Zhang’s first film in two decades (since Happy Times 幸福时光, 2000) that takes place in the present day and an urban setting, it finds modern-day China a very different, emotionally colder place from that of Times or the earlier Keep Cool 有话好好说 (1997). The fictional Jinjiang city (repped by Chongqing, central China) is a giant metropolis of neon and glass, ruled by powerful business interests and scarcely kept in check by its police force and municipal authorities. Whether deliberately or not, Zhang hasn’t used his regular d.p. Zhao Xiaoding 赵小丁, instead teaming in a one-off with Luo Pan 罗攀, a versatile d.p. who’s done sterling work for directors like Cao Baoping 曹保平 (Einstein and Einstein 狗13, 2013; The Dead End 烈日灼心, 2015), Guan Hu 管虎 (Mr. Six 老炮儿, 2015) and Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 (I Am Not Madame Bovary 我不是潘金莲, 2016; Youth 芳华, 2017). Luo’s terrific nighttime photography of the city’s glass and neon is an equal part of the drama, as the escalating web of corruption is shown to touch everyone and everything. It’s particularly effective in the first half in creating the film’s sinister atmosphere.
Things get off to a cracking start, in mediis rebus, with various police departments staking out a nocturnal drama in the city centre as a crazed bomber holds a bus and its passengers hostage. Captions introduce characters who will become more familiar later – from the geeky deputy head of the tech department and his stern, wisecracking ex-girlfriend to the head of police and his chief detective – as the tension is ratcheted up. The aim of the bomber (played by noted comic actor Wang Xun 王迅) is to publicly humiliate the city’s vice-mayor, Zheng Gang, whom he calls a “bad man”. But the whole stunt appears to go wrong, and the vice-mayor seems a good type, determined to pin the drama on the city’s most powerful businessman, Li Zhitian. Caught in the middle is the police’s techie, who’s actually Zheng Gang’s adopted son and who is given charge of the investigation when he comes up with some surprising evidence. Meanwhile, an anti-corruption team starts investigating Zheng Gang and his staff, and Li Zhitian, who has old links with Zheng Gang, starts playing dirty.
Around the 70-minute mark, the script by Zhejiang-born writer-director Chen Yu 陈宇 (who also wrote Snipers and Full River Red) goes to a whole new level of deception as Zheng Gang and Li Zhitian battle it out. But then the plotting starts to become too over-dense, with the earlier atmosphere of creepy corruption abandoned in favour of o.t.t. dramatics and the characters losing their individualism, especially in the crowded final half-hour. Helping things along is the editing by Li Yongyi 李永一 (Cliff Walkers; Snipers), which is as tight as the writing, always moving things forward – too tight at times, as the plot becomes increasingly difficult to keep abreast of.
As the slightly geeky techie who finds himself in the middle of a giant powerplay, the blithe Lei Jiayin 雷佳音 is well cast, especially opposite Zhou Dongyu 周冬雨 (in her second film with Zhang, after Under the Hawthorn Tree 山楂树之恋, 2010), here almost unrecognisable under stern glasses as his ex-girlfriend who’s always bossing him around. Unfortunately, when the pair are called upon to carry the finale on an action level, they are not really up to it, though it’s more the fault of the script than the actors themselves. Among the older cast, lantern-faced Yu (like a more handsome version of Wang Qianyuan 王千源) steals the film as the utterly arrogant Li Zhitian, who gets off on humiliating his rivals; as the vice-mayor, the experienced Zhang Guoli 张国立 is a study in charm and deviousness. Among the sturdy supporting cast, Chen Chong 陈冲 [Joan Chen] pops up as the vice-mayor’s wife in a telling cameo, and Chen Daoming 陈道明 ditto as an anti-corruption investigator.
Among the technical credits, only the music by South Korea’s Jo Yeong-uk 조영욱 | 曹永旭 (Cliff Walkers) is weak, simply adding atmospheric doodles now and then. The film’s Chinese title is a four-character phrase meaning “solid as a boulder” or “rock-firm”.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Beijing Hanli Pictures (CN).
Script: Chen Yu, Zhang Yimou. Photography: Luo Pan. Editing: Li Yongyi. Music: Jo Yeong-uk. Art direction: Lin Mu. Styling: Mai Linlin. Sound: Yang Jiang, Zhao Nan. Action: Luo Lixian [Bruce Law]. Visual effects: Wang Xinghui. Executive direction: Li Wei.
Cast: Lei Jiayin (Su Jianming), Zhang Guoli (Zheng Gang), Yu Hewei (Li Zhitian), Zhou Dongyu (Li Huilin), Sun Yizhou (David, Li Zhitian’s son-in-law), Li Naiwen (Liu Feng, Jinwu Group head of president’s office), Xu Yajun (Liu Bo, police department head), Tian Yu (Tang Danian, Jinwu Group vice-president), He Zhengjun (Wen Hui, Jinjiang City Police chief detective), Xu Zili (Sun Heyang), Lin Boyang (Yang Xiaowei; Zhu Li), Chen Tong (Li Sha, Li Zhitian’s daughter), Chen Daoming (Chen Weimin, anti-corruption task-force head), Chen Chong [Joan Chen] (He Xiuli, Zheng Gang’s wife), Wang Xun (Kong Sanshun, bomber), Zhao Liang (Xu Defa, gang leader), Jiao Gang (Gao Jin), Ling Lin (Li), Chen Ruo (Liu Mingli, Xinzhong Commerce legal representative), Cheng Yi (Liu Mingli’s wife).
Release: China, 28 Sep 2023.