The Last Judgement
悬崖
China, 2021, colour, 2.35:1, 87 mins.
Director: Han Zhi 韩志.
Rating: 6/10.
Labyrinthine crime caper has decent performances and a clever script but lacks major names to give it punch.
STORY
Dongshan peninsula, Fujian province, southeast China, the present day. Local tour guide Yu Guang (Wang Xun) wakes up one morning at a bus stop to find a black people carrier and a motorbike parked behind it. No one is around. The van looks like his own, but re-painted and re-purposed as an armoured security van. His key opens the van’s door, so he gets in and drives off, but en route he’s attacked by two people on the motorbike who drug him with a poisoned dart. (Yu Guang is a single parent whose wife [Zhang Beibei] had died after childbirth. He had just heard from a teacher [Wang Hao] that his young daughter Yu Yunduo (Zhang Wan’er) has been entered for a piano competition in a couple of days’ time. Next day he’d drawn out RMB100,000 to buy his daughter a piano as promised but instead had invested it in a local tourism project pitched by Cai Jiu [Li Yixiang]. That evening he’d heard on the news that Cai Jiu and his two accomplices, Maggie [Ming Ziyu] and Hei Feng [Ben Jieming] were fraudsters hunted by the police. He’d also given them his van as part of his investment. That night, after drinking heavily in a bar on a boat, he had received a phone message with a picture of his van, telling him to go to an address. He had waited at a bus shelter there and fallen asleep. Next morning he’d found his van, painted black and with four security boxes full of money inside. While taking it to the police, prior to attending his daughter’s piano competition, he’d been attacked by two people on a motorbike who’d drugged him with a dart.) Yu Guang crashes the van and the two motorcyclists are also thrown off their bike. By the roadside, two penniless car mechanics, Fei (Liu Yang) and Xiao’ao (Liu Chao), recognise the van as one they recently re-purposed. (Three days earlier, Cai Jiu and his two accomplices had offered Fei and Xiao’ao RMB450,000 to re-purpose the people carrier as an armoured security van in 72 hours. Using the garage’s deeds as a pledge, Fei had borrowed RMB100,000 to buy the necessary parts. But when Cai Jiu came to collect the van, he had driven off without paying, leaving the two mechanics penniless.) Inside the van Fei and Xiao’ao find the security boxes and make off with the van. But Xiao’ao accidentally crashes it, so they start carrying the boxes to a nearby wharf, intending to rent a boat and arriving in Guangzhou, down the coast, in two days’ time. After going back to collect Xiao’ao’s bag, they find the body of a security guard near the van, whom they assume they hit when the van crashed. Then Yu Guang wakes up in the back of the van. All three agree to dress up as security guards and drive the van to the wharf, but en route they’re stopped by a motorcycle policeman, Xu Song (Lu Qifa), who needs them to help a couple whose car has had a puncture. The pregnant wife (Wang Jiajia) of a businessman (Zhang Lei) is having a miscarriage and a typhoon is on its way from southern Taiwan. The couple say they don’t need any help but Xu Song insists. Once inside the van, the wife recognises Yu Guang from the night, two days earlier, when he got drunk in her bar.
REVIEW
A labyrinthine crime caper, in which half the fun is seeing how it will all hang together as the narrative flashes backwards and forwards, The Last Judgement 悬崖 is one of the better entries in a genre that was popular in the Mainland around a decade ago but less so nowadays. Shot in late 2018, certified in autumn 2020, and finally released this September, it made almost zero (RMB320,000) at the Mainland box office, despite a clever script that just about makes sense, some decent performances, and okay direction by Qingdao-born Han Zhi 韩志, now 42, an actor-cum-writer/director who’s made a handful of journeyman films since his debut with the rom-com West Groovy 西京囧事 (2010). It just lacks major names in the cast to give it some special punch.
The most significant name on the credits is that of creative producer 监制 Ye Weimin 叶伟民 [Raymond Yip], a Hong Kong film-maker who’s had several successes in the Mainland (Lost on Journey 人在囧途, 2010; The House That Never Dies 京城81号, 2014; Cook Up a Storm 决战食神, 2017) and who can usually be relied on for good production values. Judgement isn’t a lavish production, and apart from goofy comedian Wang Xun 王迅 (then moving from character into starring roles, since black comedy Kill Me Please 这就是命, 2017) has no sizeable names among the cast; but the densely plotted screenplay by Han and four other writers is well paced and climaxes in an Italian Job-like cliffhanger that cleverly releases all the character tensions accumulated thus far. Han played a supporting role in Ye’s House That Never Dies – the Mainland’s biggest-grossing horror movie – and the latter’s professional influence can be seen throughout Last Judgement.
Starting with the main character, a self-employed, single-parent tour guide on Dongshan peninsula, southern China, who wakes up at a bus stop to find his people carrier painted black and full of stolen money, the screenplay shifts back and forth filling in the backstory, revisiting scenes from a different perspective, and so on, as the viewer is led a merry dance into the unknown. Most of the plot is crammed into the first hour, with the third act set in the aforementioned van as it literally hangs in the balance. Apart from a slight ickiness in the relationship between the everyman lead and his cute young daughter, the film maintains a cynical questioning tone, as one after another comic mishap befalls the various protagonists.
Wang, then 44, keeps his natural tendency towards goofiness well under control, though he’s not a natural leading man and is easily overshadowed by others here and there. Liu Yang 刘洋 (as a stupid car mechanic), Li Yixiang 李易祥 (as the chameleon villain) and Wang Jiajia 王佳佳 (as a bar owner’s wife) all attract much more attention when on screen than Wang – which does weaken the overall dramatic balance. Technically, things are smooth, with clean widescreen photography by Zhang Tao 张涛 and trim cutting by He Guiguang 何贵光. The film’s Chinese title means “The Precipice” or “The Cliff Edge”. Filming on Dongshan peninsula itself, in Fujian province, south of Xiamen, wrapped on 31 Dec 2018.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Kai Pictures (CN), China UniCreative (Beijing) Pictures (CN), Shanghai Smile Film & TV Culture Media (CN), Beijing Guangying Herun Pictures (CN), Huzhou Maizuo Film & TV Culture (CN), Beijing Herun Hongmeng Pictures (CN). Produced by Beijing Aspiring Youth Pictures (CN).
Script: Han Zhi, Liu Juanjuan, Du Changquan, Li Na, Jiang Miaomiao. Photography: Zhang Tao. Editing: He Guiguang. Music: Chen Zhengyi, Lu Yin. Art direction: Wang Zhi. Styling: Ma Songyan. Sound: Ding Liang. Action: Zhou Quan. Car stunts: Zhu Kefeng, Huang Shidian. Visual effects: Zheng Wenzheng.
Cast: Wang Xun (Yu Guang), Li Yixiang (Cai Jiu), Wang Jiajia (Jian Ruyue, Fang Da’s wife), Zhang Lei (Fang Da), Liu Yang (Fei), Liu Chao (Xiao’ao), Ming Ziyu (Maggie, Cai Jiu’s female accomplice), Ben Jieming (Hei Feng, Cai Jiu’s male accomplice), Zhang Wan’er (Yu Yunduo, Yu Guang’s daughter), Lu Qifa (Xu Song, motorcycle policeman), Zhang Beibei (Huilan, Yu Guang’s wife), Wang Hao (Wang, teacher), Liu Junhong (Xiang), Wang Shuo (checkpoint policeman), Gan Shujie (male tourist), Shi Xiaohu (TV presenter).
Release: China, 10 Sep 2021.