Nowhere to Run
封门诡影
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 88 mins.
Director: Wang Mengyuan 王孟圆.
Rating: 6/10.
Haunted-village horror is raised above the low-budget norm by some imaginative direction and writing.
STORY
Northern China, the present day, winter. Psychology lecturer Zhang Yang (Zhang Duo) finds himself tortured by hallucinations and then receives a video message from elder brother Zhang Mo (Tu Yuwei) who says he is in abandoned Fengmen village and has discovered its secret. Zhang Yang meets Zhang Mo’s girlfriend Xu Xiaoxiao (Liu Ying), who is very worried; she’s been waiting for over a week for Zhang Mo to return and wants to tell him she’s pregnant. They decide to drive to Fengmen, up in the mountains, to find him. Nearing the village their car radio stops working. They pick up two hitchhikers, Kang Wenkai (Sui Yongliang) and his girlfriend Xiaotong (Qian Sitong), who are also going to Fengmen to investigate the mystery surrounding the ancient stone village, from which all the inhabitants suddenly disappeared one night 22 years ago. Hiking the final stretch, the four arrive at the area and spend the night in an abandoned temple, where they meet two more people, presenter Yu Man (Ge Tian) and her cameraman Du (Du Yuting), who are making a TV programme about Fengmen. Yu Man takes a liking to Zhang Yang. Next day they reach the village, where Xu Xiaoxiao finds a jade pendant belonging to her brother and claims she briefly spotted him. Xiaotong goes missing and is found unconscious, with three scratch marks on her neck. The group then discovers the way out is now blocked by a cliff face. During the night, Xiaotong disappears and, while searching for her, the others find a house in the village lit up with candles and decorated with photos of people with their eyes cut out. In the morning they find Kang Wenkai dead in a coffin, also with three scratch marks on his neck. Later, Du finds similar marks on his neck and throws himself off a cliff. That night Yu Man has the same marks, and starts to act possessed, initially trying to seduce Xu Xiaoxiao.
REVIEW
Set and shot in the abandoned (and reputedly haunted) stone village of Fengmen 封门村, Henan province, 700 kilometres south of Beijing, Nowhere to Run 封门诡影 is a modest horror that’s entirely built out of genre elements but is surprisingly effective thanks to direction and screenplay that earn the film a combined extra mark. The first feature of Beijing Film Academy graduate Wang Mengyuan 王孟圆, it’s a clever spin on the Mainland requirement that ghost movies should have a logical explanation, leading the viewer up the garden path towards a standard ending and then springing a series of inventively staged twists in the closing minutes. Lead writer Wen He 温河 (also one of the film’s creative producers 监制) was to develop such an approach to much more elaborate degree in his own directing debut, Endless Loop 黑暗迷宫 (2017), but the roots are clearly visible here. No doubt due to the celebrity of Fengmen “ghost village”, the film, which had no big names, performed better than most low-budget horrors, scaring up some RMB26 million.
The film-makers start shaking up the formula from the start, starting with a distraught young woman with amnesia being treated in a clinic after returning from some shocking event in Fengmen. In what appears to be a flashback, a psychology lecturer, who turns out to be her boyfriend’s younger brother, is then introduced, with his own set of hallucinations. After receiving a video message from his brother, who claims to have discovered the secret of Fengmen, the lecturer and the young woman set out for the village to find him. En route they give a lift to a couple also visiting Fengmen, and later find two TV film-makers making a documentary there.
The central section is more standard ghostly antics as everyone runs round the village and the body count mounts, but the opening atmosphere is effectively sustained by Wang’s mobile direction, tight editing by Liu Chen 刘晨, and an above-average score by Pei Dongfeng 裴东峰. Around the 70-minute mark, when lesser horrors run out of puff, the script then starts to explain everything – but capped by a lengthy coda that’s full of further surprises and moves the goalposts in an unexpected direction. There’s enough there for a whole separate movie, but it even kind of makes sense.
Performances and ensemble are okay, with most of the burden carried by TV actor Zhang Duo 张铎 (billed here as Xiao [“Little”] Zhang Duo 小张铎, to differentiate him from an earlier actor) as the tortured psychologist and TV actress Liu Ying 刘滢 as the heroine. Of the rest, big-screen newcomer Ge Tian 葛天 (who was to appear later in Wen’s Endless Loop) makes the most forceful impression, as a horny film-maker who tries it on with both of the two leads, most memorably with Liu’s character.
Technical credits are solid, including the widescreen photography by lead d.p. Li Xianlin 李宪霖. The Chinese title literally means “Fengmen Eery Shadows”. The word for “eery” 诡 just happens to sound exactly the same as the one for “ghost” 鬼 – a fact that’s played up on the film’s poster.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Size Film (CN), Shanghai Huayu Film (CN), Shanghai Sanyuan Movie & TV (CN).
Script: Wen He, Wang Mengyuan, Wan Chao. Photography: Li Xianlin. Editing: Liu Chen. Music: Pei Dongfeng. Art direction: Tang Bin. Styling: Ji Zi. Sound: Zhang Lewei, Yang Guang. Action: He Zhenjiang. Visual effects: Zhao Huijie, Li Ming. Second-unit photography: Zhao Yang (Beijing exteriors), Zhang Wenjie (Beijing mountain exteriors), Liang Yong (Fengmen village exteriors), Yi Wenyang (Beijing stop-motion). Executive direction: Du Yuting.
Cast: Zhang Duo (Zhang Yang), Liu Ying (Xu Xiaoxiao), Ge Tian (Yu Man), Sui Yongliang (Kang Wenkai), Qian Sitong (Xiaotong), Du Yuting (Du, cameraman), Tu Yuwei (Zhang Mo), Chang Cheng (Jiang, hypnotist doctor), Yuchi Shaonan (psychologist), Jiang Dai, Cao Guanghui (policemen), Liu Hongda, Fang Feifei, Li Juan (nurses), He Zhenjiang (aikido trainer), Liu Xiulan (old village woman), Hua Yi (TV station head).
Release: China, 13 Mar 2015.