Remain Silent
保持沉默
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 95 mins.
Director: Zhou Ke 周可.
Rating: 6/10.
Strong lead performances make this twisty-turny crime mystery a watchable experience.
STORY
Hong Kong, 24 Dec 2013. During a concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre singer Wan Wenfang (Zhou Xun) is found stabbed in her dressing room by her assistant Luo Meihui (Li Na), who calls the police. A young man (Sun Rui) is chased, jumps into the harbour and is arrested. He is later identified as Chinese American Jimmy Thomas, 18. Wan Wenfang is taken to hospital in a coma. The US consulate hires Duanmu Lan (Zhou Xun), a top lawyer from Beijing who studied in Hong Kong, to defend him. Under Hong Kong law Jimmy Thomas faces a life sentence if found guilty. He then tells Duanmu Lan that Wan Wenfang is his mother. Special prosecutor Wu Zhengwei (Wu Zhenyu) visits Wan Wenfang’s manager, Tian Jingcheng (Zu Feng), who’s known her since her first record 14 years ago. He then discovers Jimmy Thomas was adopted from a Mainland orphanage in 2000 by an American couple who later abused him and died in a mysterious car crash; after going back into care in his mid-teens, Jimmy Thomas left at the age of 18 and then vanished. Jimmy Thomas tells Duanmu Lan that six months ago he had tried to find his original orphanage in the Mainland but it had been destroyed long ago in a fire. After tracing Wan Wenfang to Hong Kong, he had confronted her but was rejected; however, she then decided to acknowledge him as her son in an announcement after 24 Dec concert. In her dressing room they had argued and he had passed out, though he vaguely remembered hearing her talking to someone else in the room. When he recovered, he had found her stabbed on the floor and made a run for it. Duanmu Lan and Wu Zhengwei, it turns out, had a relationship when she was studying in Hong Kong; but to his surprise she had suddenly gone back to Beijing and got married. At the first court hearing Duanmu Lan requests her client to maintain his right to silence, pending a psychological examination. The coroner’s report reveals that Wan Wenfang was actually stabbed twice, the second injury causing her to slip into a coma. Traces were also found in the dressing room of Black Datura, a flower traditionally symbolising revenge, which can cause hallucinations. Wu Zhengwei discovers that the US police had suspected foul play in the death of Jimmy Thomas’ adoptive parents but dropped the case from lack of evidence. Then someone leaks to the media that Jimmy Thomas is Wan Wenfang’s son out of wedlock. And Jimmy Thomas reveals to Duanmu Lan that he knew Tian Jingcheng when he was younger and that Tian Jingcheng hates him.
REVIEW
Mainland actress Zhou Xun 周迅 and Hong Kong veteran Wu Zhenyu 吴镇宇 [Francis Ng] create excellent chemistry together as defence and prosecuting lawyers in Remain Silent 保持沉默, a locked room mystery-cum-legal procedural-cum-criminal psychodrama that’s well constructed and finally quite moving without having that extra something special. Despite its weaknesses and occasional plot-holes, it’s still a noteworthy debut by Chengdu-born writer-director Zhou Ke 周可, 44, especially considering her previous experience has been in theatre and musicals. Mainland box office, however, was minimal, a mere RMB21.5 million.
The opening, as a young man is arrested after a well-known singer is found stabbed in her dressing room during a concert at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, sets up a locked-room mystery, as no one was seen to enter the room after her assistant left. A high-flying Beijing defence lawyer, with Hong Kong experience (Zhou Xun), is appointed by the US consulate as the 18-year-old suspect, born in the Mainland, is found to be a US citizen, adopted in 2000 by an American couple who subsequently died in a suspicious car crash. The script quickly adds further wrinkles: the young man was an orphan and had been abused by his adoptive parents, he had confronted the singer with the fact that she was actually his birth mother, she was due to acknowledge the parentage after her concert, and she was actually stabbed twice, the second wound causing her to lapse into a coma. Just to complicate things even further, the Mainland lawyer was once in a relationship with the Hong Kong prosecutor (Wu).
As the drama veers away from being just a locked-room mystery, the vibes between the two lawyers make it look as if the film will become a personal duel between them. But again the script does another sidestep: Zhou and Wu’s relationship, in which both still have unfinished business, adds extra texture to the movie without taking over the plot, and their constant switching between Mandarin and Cantonese ditto. And there’s an extra wrinkle to the film itself, in that Zhou – in a remarkable sleight-of-hand – also plays the victim. Thanks to a combination of simple makeup changes and clever lighting, but mostly due to Zhou’s remarkable acting, the trick actually works and is never distracting. (The fact that, as the singer, she’s dubbed by one of the Mainland’s top voice artists, Ji Guanlin 季冠霖, also helps.) Whether the trick adds anything to the drama is a moot point, though for Zhou fans (including director Zhou Ke) it makes the movie one of the actress’ tours-de-force.
The final hour adds more complications as the singer’s manager (Zu Feng 祖峰, the police handler in drugs drama Extraordinary Mission 非凡任务, 2017) is implicated in the plot and, following the jury’s finding, the action switches to Beijing for the finale – the film’s weakest section of plotting but, thanks to the performances, surprisingly quite affecting. As the story twists and turns, adding layers of unforeseen complication, it’s the performances by Zhou, 40 at the time of shooting, and Wu, then 53, that make the film what it is – an effective but unsurprising psychodrama. Always good at complex characters, Zhou is commanding as the defence lawyer; but Wu, who simply gets better as he ages, adds a nice line in relaxed playing, especially in their scenes together. As the taciturn young suspect, newcomer Sun Rui 孙睿 is effective without adding much to his character.
The film’s production is somewhat mysterious. Zhou’s first film after taking a year’s break following her marriage in mid-2014, it appears to have been shot in 2015, in Hong Kong and Tokyo, and then disappeared due to legal complications. At some stage, Hong Kong’s Ma Chucheng 马楚成 [Jingle Ma] was involved as creative producer 监制. Its production title was 黑色曼陀罗 (“Black Datura”). There are no credits at the front of the film, apart from the title. The presenting companies listed below come from the movie’s poster; before the film itself, four different companies have their logos displayed: JQ Pictures (CN), Shaw Brothers Pictures (HK), Er Dong Pictures (Beijing) (CN) and Tianjin Maoyan Weiying Cultural Media (CN).
CREDITS
Presented by Central Studio of News Reels Production (CN), Xunguangnian Cultural Development (Beijing) (CN), Beijing Enlight Pictures (CN), Shannan Enlight Pictures (CN), Shenzhen China Wit Media (CN).
Script: Zhou Ke. Song music: Zhang Duoduo. Lyrics: Wu Wei.
Cast: Zhou Xun (Duanmu Lan, defence lawyer; Wan Wenfang, singer), Wu Zhenyu [Francis Ng] (Wu Zhengwei, special prosecutor), Zu Feng (Tian Jingcheng, Wan Wenfang’s manager), Sun Rui (Jimmy Thomas), Kou Jiarui (Guo Li, Wu Zhengwei’s assistant), Wang Tianchen (Qin Gang, Wu Zhengwei’s assistant), Li Na (Luo Meihui, Wan Wenfang’s assistant), Li Yuan (Qu Bo, Duanmu Lan’s assistant), Wen Xin (An Ni, Duanmu Lan’s assistant), Tian Rui (He Tianfa), Xie Zhihua (Tony, jazz-bar owner), Guo Ziming (young Wan Sicheng), Wang Chufan (young Zhang Xiaojie), Elyse Ribbons (Michelle Brown, US consulate official), Ou Xuanwei (judge), Li Jian (magistrate), He Haofeng (Chen, police inspector), Ye Yunqiang (Ma, police captain), Lin Lingyuan (Lin, security head).
Release: China, 23 Aug 2019.