Bad Guys Always Die
坏蛋必须死
China, 2015, colour, 2.35:1, 102 mins.
Director: Sun Hao 孙皓.
Rating: 6/10.
After a strong first hour, the wind goes out of the sails of this South Korea-set black comedy.
STORY
Busan, South Korea, the present day. Cai Weiguo, aka Qiangzi (Chen Bolin), is a Taibei-born, Beijing-raised, UK university-educated teacher of Chinese in a South Korean elementary school. Among his pupils is young Mi-ran (Seo Da-in), with whom he has a misunderstanding just before he leaves for nearby Jeju Island to holiday with two friends from China, the piggy Datou (Ding Wenbo) and skirt-chasing San’er (Qiao Zhenyu), who are flying in with his younger brother Papa (Yang Xuwen). After meeting up at Jeju airport, where San’er tries to chat up a young Chinese woman (Guan Xiaotong), the four are driving around the countryside when they see a crashed car with an unconscious woman (Son Ye-jin) at the wheel. En route to a hospital, they stop to tell a roadside policeman (Shin Hyeon-jun), whom the woman, suddenly regaining consciousness, shoots. Datou and San’er, who don’t speak Korean, take the body to a nearby police station but when an officer (Jang Gwang) comes out the body has gone; instead, in the car’s boot, they find a policeman stripped and wounded. Datou and San’er make a run for it. Meanwhile, the woman, Im Ji-yeon, has taken Qiangzi and Papa hostage in a hotel room: she wants Datou and San’er to return her bag, or else. When she sends Papa out for some food, he sees a TV report that Im Ji-yeon is the chief suspect in the murder of her work colleague, Kim Sun-huei (Gim Yun-heui). On the way back to the hotel, Papa is followed by the supposedly dead “policeman” – in reality a hitman – who gets distracted from killing him by some noisy hotel guests and ends up being knocked unconscious. Next day Datou and San’er set off to Seogwipo Dock with two boat tickets they found in Im Ji-yeon’s bag; in a left-luggage locker they find nothing except a large pig doll. When Im Ji-yeon arrives with a duplicate key, she finds a note from Datou and San’er telling her to meet them at the dock the next day for an exchange.
REVIEW
Funded by Mainland companies – but in most other respects (cast, locations, music, art direction, costumes) a de facto Korean co-production – Bad Guys Always Die 坏蛋必须死 has absorbed its setting so well that it looks and feels more like a South Korean movie with a handful of Chinese actors than the other way round. In fact, in addition to the framing, pacing and acting styles, all of which are thoroughly Korean, director/co-writer Sun Hao 孙皓 even has characters abusing and punching each other within the first three minutes. In other respects the script is a one-thing-leads-to-another black comedy for which Mainland (and South Korean) film-makers have shown a liking during the past decade (No Man’s Land 无人区, 2013; A Hard Day 끝까지 간다, 2014). Unfortunately, after a strong first hour in which the viewer is kept dangling, the wind goes out of its sails once the background is explained.
Sun, 39, graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 1999 and immediately started working as an assistant to Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚, involved in all aspects of production up to Back to 1942 一九四二 (2012), on which he only worked at a script stage. Bad Guys is his big-screen feature debut, though he previously directed the TV movie, Swordsmen of the Passes: Tail Feather 关中刀客之花翎子 (2003), an action drama with Ye Jing 叶静 and (Feng’s actress wife) Xu Fan 徐帆, on which Feng was credited as “artistic supervisor”. Feng also lends his name to Bad Guys as an executive in charge of production 监制, along with the much less talented South Korean director Gang Je-gyu 강제규 | 姜帝圭 (Shiri 쉬리, 1999; Taegukgi 태극기 휘날리며, 2003) who’s been exploring opportunities in China for several years.
Less mumbly than usual, and speaking convincing snatches of Korean, Taiwan’s Chen Bolin 陈柏霖 is reasonably convincing as a teacher of Chinese at a Busan elementary school who’s spent most of his life on the move (born in Taibei, raised in Beijing, higher-educated in the UK) and thus has no strong cultural imprints. The two Mainland friends with whom he goes on holiday to Jeju Island are cut from more familiar cloth – one piggy, one lecherous – while his younger brother hardly registers on the personality scale. That imbalance aside, Sun and co-writer Hu Jingbo 扈晶波 keep things moving briskly at the start, with a major surprise only 12 minutes in as bodies start piling up and then disappearing. As the four Chinese become caught in a deadly local affair involving a hitman, a femme fatale and lots of missing money, the movie essentially splits into two as Chen’s character and his younger brother become separated from their pals, and the two pairs’ paths keep almost crossing.
With nothing at this point yet explained, the film is still getting by on macabre plot twists and black comedy, with the two non-Korean-speaking friends stumbling around the landscape and Chen’s character held prisoner by the femme fatale. Nimble cross-cutting (by Meng Peicong 孟佩璁, regular cutter for Zhang Yimou 张艺谋) between the two strands keeps things lively; but when a large chunk of the plot is explained at the 60-minute mark, there’s not enough character interest or event to sustain the shenanigans for a further 40 minutes. It’s a common enough fault of such crime caper movies, and Hu and Sun, though adept at all the usual narrative tricks (including sequences that turn out to be dreams), give the game away much too soon rather than drip-feed information to the viewer.
Another problem is that the cast lacks any strong, characterful leads who can draw the audience into the film beyond the plot twists. Chen is okay but not a dominant enough personality for a crime caper like this and, though Qiao Zhenyu 乔振宇 and Ding Wenbo 丁文博 have reasonable chemistry as the two Mainland friends, it’s not strong enough to sustain the film in its weaker moments. In her first “Chinese” movie, South Korea’s Son Ye-jin 손예진 | 孙艺珍 (The Classic 클래식, 2003; April Snow 외출 | 外出, 2005), who showed she can do cold and unsmiling in The Pirates 해적 바다로 간 산적 | 海贼 (2014), is better in the first half as the silent and deadly femme fatale; when she stops playing that, and requires some audience sympathy, the 34-year-old actress is bland and ineffective.
There are times when Son appears to be acting in a different universe to the Chinese cast; the same could be said for the hawk-faced Shin Hyeon-jun 신현준 | 申贤俊 (Bichunmoo 비천무 | 飞天舞, 2000) but that’s always been a strong part of this distinctive-looking actor’s personality, and here fits his role as a strong and silent hitman. The only South Korean actor who really engages with the Chinese cast is character actor Jang Gwang 장광 | 张光, fine as a bemused local cop.
For the record, the film’s original title has a more didactic meaning (“Bad Guys Must Die”). In China it performed only so-so on release, grossing RMB47 million; in South Korea, where it was released on 4 Feb 2016, it crashed and burned.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing New Power Film & TV Culture (CN), Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Nanjing Dadao Xingzhi Culture Media (CN). Produced by Beijing New Power Film & TV Culture (CN), Huayi Brothers Media (CN), Nanjing Dadao Xingzhi Culture Media (CN).
Script: Hu Jingbo, Sun Hao. Photography: Ke Yuming. Editing: Meng Peicong. Music: Jeong Jung-han. Music supervision: Ma Shangyou. Art direction: Gim Ji-su. Costume design: An Mi-gyeong (for Son Ye-jin), Gweon Yu-jin, Im Seung-heui. Sound: Wu Jiang. Action: Yang Gil-yeong. Visual effects: Bak Yeong-su (Mofac & Alfred). Executive direction: Zheng Chunyu.
Cast: Chen Bolin (Cai Weiguo/Qiangzi), Son Ye-jin (Im Ji-yeon), Qiao Zhenyu (San’er), Shin Hyeon-jun (hitman), Jang Gwang (local policeman), Yang Xuwen (Papa, Cai Weiguo’s younger brother), Ding Wenbo (Datou), Bak Cheol-min (priest), Guan Xiaotong (girl at airport cafe), Fu Zixuan [Danning Fu] (TV newscaster), Wi Hyeon-i (Cha Myeong-ho, Busan detective), Choi Heon-su (manager), Gim Min-gyeong (Gim Sun-heui’s mother), Gim Yun-heui (Gim Sun-heui), Seo Da-in (Mi-ran), Jeong Jong-hun (school head), Na Jun-ho (convenience shop owner).
Release: China, 27 Nov 2015.