Hold Your Hands
十八洞村
China, 2017, colour, 2.35:1, 118 mins.
Director: Miao Yue 苗月.
Rating: 6/10.
Leisurely but involving story of a remote village’s economic revival, starring veteran Wang Xueqi.
STORY
Shibadong village, Xiangxi autonomous prefecture, western Hunan province, southern China, the present day. In the remote stone village surrounded by rice terraces, a young government worker, Wang Shen (Bai Wei), arrives as part of a poverty-alleviation team. On the same day, the village is thrown into chaos by the news that Shi Youcheng (Du Tianfu), whose family officially left the village – never to return – a century ago, has been spotted in the nearby market town with Yang Weiwei (Chen Xibei), whom he recently “kidnapped”. Yang Weiwei’s father, Yang Yinglian (Badeng Xirao), raises a commotion and his elder brother, clan leader Yang Yingjun (Wang Xueqi), tries to sort things out. In the town’s police station Yang Weiwei says she was never “kidnapped”; in fact she left the village to look for work and is now married to Shi Youcheng. The couple came back because the factory had gone bankrupt. The fuss is eventually sorted out and Yang Weiwei says she’ll be back when they’ve earned some money. When Yang Yingjun, a former member of the military who’s now a rice-farmer, learns that a poverty-alleviation team has come to award RMB50,000 interest-free loans under a government policy, he’s upset and scolds one member of the clan, Yang Lan (Awang Renqing), for having no self-esteem. He’s even more upset when, at a village meeting, he’s one of those selected, along with Yang Yinglian. He and his wife Ma Mei (Chen Jin) are raising their young grand-daughter Xiaonangua (Zhang Xuanrui), who is mentally retarded due to meningitis, while their son and his wife are away working in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Ma Mei, who keeps the family’s accounts, points out that, under government rules, they do officially qualify as being “poor”. But when a sign is attached to his home, the proud Yang Yingjun tears it down. After one of the poverty-alleviation team leaves the village because of the stress their work is causing, his colleague Wang Shen decides to help solve the problem by befriending Yang Yingjun and inspiring him to create work for the villagers, 80% of whom have family members who’ve been forced to look for work elsewhere.
REVIEW
A proud old soldier-turned-rice-farmer is gently motivated to improve the economic situation of his remote village in Hold Your Hands 十八洞村, a light drama-cum-black comedy highlighting the Mainland government’s policy of “targeted poverty alleviation” 精准扶贫 in areas where most younger people have been driven to seek work elsewhere. A tad leisurely at almost two hours, the film is saved from being just a policy pamphlet by strong performances from a cast led led by veteran Wang Xueqi 王学圻 and good production values that convey a real sense of everyday life and traditional values in a Miao community in Hunan province without becoming another picturesque ethnic-minority movie. Local box office was a respectable RMB107 million.
It’s the most mature work by writer-director Miao Yue 苗月, who’s hardly known outside China but has been working regularly in film and TV for over three decades, often focusing on rural stories. Now around 60, she started as a writer while at university and in the late 1980s penned her first script, 电影人 (literally, “Film People”, 1988, dir. Ding Yinnan 丁荫楠). After a short spell at the Beijing Film Academy she co-directed her first feature, the schlocky kid’s martial arts film Grandson and Grandpa 龙爷虎孙 (1993), with Sun Min 孙敏, an actor-director who’s subsequently featured in many of her movies (including Hold Your Hands). Early in her career, she wrote the original script for the utterly charming Heartstrings 心香 (1992, aka The True-Hearted), the first film by director Sun Zhou (Zhou Yu’s Train 周渔的火车, 2002; I Do 我愿意, 2012) to attract international attention and still one of his best.
Based on a true story, Miao’s screenplay unfolds at a leisurely pace, starting with scenes of everyday life and then a local hooha as a young member of a family that officially left the village a century ago is spotted with a girl he supposedly “kidnapped”. Having thus laid out the small community’s traditional values, and the underlying theme of young people being forced to leave to find work, the story zeroes in on the leader of the Yang clan, Yang Yingjun (Wang), a proud old member of the military – he actually repaired aeroplanes – who’s aggrieved at being classified as officially poor and thus eligible for a government loan. Almost an hour in, the story proper starts, as a young member of the “poverty alleviation” team decides to befriend him and inspire him to lead the village in looking for a way out of its economic problems.
As the crusty old “warrior”, Wang, 71, brings a lifetime of acting experience into making the lead character much more than just a portrait of bruised male pride, and never loses the audience’s sympathies. Actress Chen Jin 陈瑾, 53, a regular in Miao’s films, is utterly authentic as his quietly supportive wife and a good match for Wang’s considerable physical presence. As the young cadre who turns him round, Bai Wei 白微 (aka 白威), grows in the role. Widescreen photography by Gao Pengyu 高鹏宇 of both the grey stone village and sun-beaten rice terraces is consistently striking, though rarely in a showy way, and music by He Xunyou 何训友 is discreet. The use of “jump-frame” speeded-up action in some linking sequences – seemingly meant to add energy to their action – just looks strange. The film’s Chinese title is the name of the location, which means Eighteen Caves Village.
CREDITS
Presented by Xiaoxiang Film Group (CN), Emei Film Group (CN), Huaxia Film Distribution (CN). Produced by CPC Hunan Province Publicity Committee (CN), CPC Sichuan Province Publicity Committee (CN), Xiaoxiang Film Group (CN), Emei Film Group (CN).
Script: Miao Yue. Photography: Gao Pengyu. Editing: Chen Bingfeng. Music: He Xunyou. Art direction: Zhang Ziyu. Costumes: Luo Ping. Sound: Wu Ming, Liu Shuang. Visual effects: Pu Xinyue.
Cast: Wang Xueqi (Yang Yingjun), Chen Jin (Ma Mei, Yang Yingjun’s wife), Bai Wei (Wang Shen, member of poverty-alleviation team), Badeng Xirao (Yang Yinglian, Yang Yingjun’s younger brother), Awang Renqing (Yang Lan), Sun Min (Yang Yinghua), Chen Xibei (Yang Weiwei), Yu Yang (leader of poverty-alleviation team), Zhang Xuanrui (Xiaonangua), Shi Jinliang (Yang Jinsan), Mo Yang (Xiaolong, member of poverty-alleviation team), Du Tianfu (Shi Youcheng, Yang Weiwei’s husband), Long Hui (Shi, Party branch secretary), Feng Chaochen (Yang Lusheng), Tao Ran (Miao girl), Wu Lifen (Yang Jinsan’s wife), Shi Shougui (rural doctor), Zhou Qi (Yang Yingjun’s military friend), Hu Jinyang (drum-playing youth), Li Rong (young policeman).
Release: China, 13 Oct 2017.