The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D

智取威虎山

China/Hong Kong, 2014, colour, 2.35:1, 3-D, 141 mins.

Director: Xu Ke 徐克 [Tsui Hark].

Rating: 8/10.

Reworking of old-style PLA heroics by Hong Kong director Xu Ke [Tsui Hark] is bracingly effective popcorn action.

STORY

New York, Dec 2015. Student Jiang Lei, aka Jimmy (Han Geng), attends a Christmas party in Chinatown prior to catching a flight home to China to take up his first job. By chance he watches a clip from the 1970 film version of the Cultural Revolution model opera Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy 智取威虎山 and en route to his destination his mind drifts back to the event which inspired it. Northeast China, Heilongjiang province, Jan 1946. Following the resumption of the Chinese civil war after the surrender of the Japanese, bandit groups have been rampaging throughout the area, partly in collusion with Nationalist (KMT) forces who use them to halt the Communist PLA. In snow-covered forests near the Mudan (Peony) River, a starving PLA troop commanded by Shao Jianbo, codename “203” (Lin Gengxin), is battling to wipe out the bandits. It takes on a group of renegades, loyal to local warlord Lord Hawk (Liang Jiahui), from which two manage to escape alive. At a nearby train station, the troop is joined by Yang Zirong (Zhang Hanyu), an experienced scout from the PLA’s political division, and a field nurse, Bai Ru (Tong Liya). Meanwhile, in his fortress on Tiger Mountain, which was previously used by the Japanese, Lord Hawk punishes the two survivors for going down the mountain without permission. KMT military commissioner Hou (Hai Yitian) visits Lord Hawk to discuss a deal which would involve the latter being given the valuable Advance Map, which shows the positions of over 10,000 fighters left in the mountains from the original force positioned to fight the Japanese during the war; whoever owns the map would control the whole of Northeast China. Hou actually intends to let Lord Hawk fight it out with rival bandit leader Big Stick, but the map is in the hands of former Big Stick bandit Luan Ping (Du Yiheng), who intends to sell it to Lord Hawk, to whom he’s shifted allegiance, in exchange for a senior position. Meanwhile, the PLA troop captures a wounded boy, Jiang Shuanzi (Su Yiming), whom Bai nurses. The troop then goes to Leather Creek, a village at the base of Tiger Mountain which has been suffering from bandit raids since the Japanese left, and 203 decides to secretly fortify the village against further raids. After happening upon and capturing Luan Ping, the PLA soldiers take the Advance Map from him. Yang volunteers to infiltrate Tiger Mountain Fortress, and 203 reluctantly agrees. After being attacked by a Siberian tiger in the forest, Yang is captured by Lord Hawk’s men and taken to the fortress. Posing as Hu Biao, Big Stick’s horse master, Yang gives Lord Hawk the Advance Map and is awarded the post of Colonel of the Security Brigade. Soon afterwards, he’s seduced by Lord Hawk’s wife, Ma Qinglian (Yu Nan), whom he realises is actually the abducted mother of the boy Shuanzi.

REVIEW

Following his okay but rather auto-piloty Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon 狄仁杰之神都龙王 (2013), Hong Kong director Xu Ke 徐克 [Tsui Hark] stays with 3-D and his own brand of semi-fantasy action – but to much more bracing effect – in The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D 智取威虎山. The usual Xu mix of a variety of genres, this one blends period spy movies, civil war guerrilla sagas, manga-like heroes and villains, and the director’s fascination with mechanical hardware into popcorn entertainment that has a much more grounded feel thanks to its period political setting.

Lead scripted by veteran Mainland director/producer Huang Jianxin 黄建新 (under the pseudonym Huang Xin 黄欣), Tiger Mountain has an impressively gruff, Northern feel for a southern director like Xu, as well as reworking an earlier style of Mainland PLA movies for a contemporary audience. The script, by six writers including Huang and Xu, is based on a 1957 novel by the late Qu Bo 曲波 called Tracks in the Snowy Forest 林海雪原, which was in turn based on a real event in 1946 during the Chinese Civil War. Qu’s novel was later adapted into the Cultural Revolution “model opera” Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy 智取威虎山 which was then made into a 1970 film by director Xie Tieli 谢铁骊 (clips from which are glimpsed at the beginning and end of the movie).

Much of the film’s authentic Northern flavour comes from its Mainland cast, led by the always imposing Zhang Hanyu 张涵予 (Assembly 集结号, 2007; The Message 风声, 2009; White Vengeance 鸿门宴传奇, 2011) as the real-life PLA scout Yang Zirong 杨子荣 (1917-47) whose exploits inspired the original novel. Zhang is backed up by a strong range of northern talent, including 26-year-old Lin Gengxin 林更新 (the Uyghur medic in Young Detective Dee) as a PLA captain, experienced actress Yu Nan 余男 as an abducted wife, photogenic Uyghur actress Tong Liya 佟丽娅 (So Young 致我们终将逝去的青春, 2013; Beijing Love Story 北京爱情故事, 2014) as a field nurse, plus a large cast of hoary character actors playing bandits and PLA soldiers. The only Hong Konger on screen, and a throwback to Xu’s costume martial-arts movies, is veteran Liang Jiahui 梁家辉 [Tony Leung Ka-fai], virtually unrecognisable under prosthetics and an outrageous wardrobe as the evil warlord who lurks in a mountain-top fortress.

Though the film contains its fair share of fantastic action – including an impressive fight between Yang and an animatronic Siberian tiger, several skiing sequences, a no-holds-barred finale, and even an “alternative finale” halfway through the end titles – much of it is grounded by the story’s physical setting of a bone-chilling winter in Northeast China. Hong Kong d.p. Cai Chonghui 蔡崇辉 [Johnny Choi], who shot Xu’s desert-set Flying Swords of Dragon Gate 龙门飞甲 (2011), creates an equally believable world here of snow-covered forests and imposing mountain-tops, with help from excellent visual effects supervised by South Korea’s Gim Uk 김욱 | 金旭 (A Tale of Two Sisters 장화홍련, 2003), versatile art direction by China’s Yi Zhenzhou 易振洲 (Hero 英雄, 2002) for both village and fortress, and lived-in, padded costumes by South Korea’s Gweon Yu-jin 권유진 | 權裕辰  (Masquerade 광해  왕이 되 남자, 2012; The Pirates 해적  바다로 간 산적 | 海贼, 2014). Though many of the subsidiary characters in the PLA troop don’t register as individuals – partly due to their beards and heavy clothing – the sense of gruff community forged by the wintry landscape comes through strongly, with some moving results in the final stages. That alone is rare for a Xu action movie, and is also due to the music by Hong Kong veteran Hu Weili 胡伟立 [William Hu], which references old-style Mainland military dramas but also finds time for gentler scoring.

The script is still peppered with threads that go nowhere and several abrupt switches, but its major fault is some silly bookending, set in the present day and featuring singer-actor Han Geng 韩庚 (My Kingdom 大武生, 2011) – who was actually born in the area where the film is set – that seems like a clumsy effort to connect a period movie with young audiences. Fortunately, Han’s character only appears at the start and finish, and doesn’t disturb the story’s main thrust. He could, in fact, be cut out completely, which would help to tighten the movie’s already extended running time of well over two hours (not counting a full eight minutes of end titles).

The “alternative ending”, which is stitched in as an imagined sequence by one character, was actually the film’s original ending but got the thumbs down from SAPPRFT. Its spectacular mounting explains why the current showdown is so unclimactic for a Xu action movie.

CREDITS

Presented by Bona Film Group (CN). Produced by Bona Film Group (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN), August First Film Studio (CN), Wanda Media (CN), China Movie Channel (CN), Youku Tudou Film (CN), Shanghai Real Thing Media (CN), Dream Sky Film (CN), Bona Entertainment (HK).

Script: Huang Xin [Huang Jianxin], Li Yang, Xu Ke [Tsui Hark], Wu Bing, Dong Zhe, Lin Qi’an. Novel: Qu Bo. Photography: Cai Chonghui [Johnny Choi]. Editing: Yu Baiyang. Music: Hu Weili [William Hu], Gu Xin, Ren Yaqing, Li Ye. Art direction: Yi Zhenzhou. Costume design: Gweon Yu-jin. Sound: Zeng Jingxiang [Kinson Tsang]. Action: Yuan Bin, Liu Guoqing. Special effects: Lee Sang-hyeong, Gim Cheol (snow), Yin Xingyun. Visual effects: Gim Uk (Dexter Digital). Siberian tiger animatronics: Patrick Gerrety (Jim Henson’s Creature Shop). Second unit photography: Gao Hu. 3-D: Li Ziheng, Liu Jiahui.

Cast: Zhang Hanyu (Yang Zirong), Liang Jiahui [Tony Leung Ka-fai] (Lord Hawk), Lin Gengxin (Shao Jianbo, PLA captain/203), Yu Nan (Ma Qinglian), Tong Liya (Bao Ru/Little Dove), Han Geng (Jiang Lei/Jimmy), Chen Xiao (Gao Bo), Zha Ka (Liu Xuncang/Tank), Wu Xudong (Sun Dade/Long Legs), Zhang Yongda (Li Hongyi), Xie Miao (Ma Baojun), Yu Bolin (Dong Zhongsong), Zhou Kai (Chu Hongshan), Li Bingyuan (Lei Gong/Detonator), Su Yiming (Jiang Shuanzi/Knotti, boy), Du Yiheng (Luan Ping), Hai Yitian (Hou, commissioner), Zhang Li (Big Brother), Shi Yanneng (Brother No. 2), Sun Jiaolong (Brother No. 3), Cheng Sihan (Brother No. 4), Yuan Wu (Brother No. 5), Xiao Yi (Brother No. 6), Wang Yao (Brother No. 7), Yang Yiwei (Brother No. 8), Lv Zhong (grandmother), Guo Hongting (Li Yongqi, villager), Ya Dan, Wang Ning (runaway bandits), Cao Lijie (village chief), Wei Jia (Xiaojuan, young village girl).

Release: China, 24 Dec 2014; Hong Kong, May 14, 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 13 Jan 2015.)