Falling Flowers

萧红

China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 120 mins.

Director: Huo Jianqi 霍建起.

Rating: 5/10.

Biopic of 1930s Chinese writer Xiao Hong looks fabulous but lacks involving drama.

STORY

Hong Kong, 1941. As the Japanese bomb the city, Zhang Naiying, aka writer Xiao Hong (Song Jia), lies ill in a hotel room, where she is visited by an admirer, Luo Binji (Zhang Bo). She remembers how, as teenager in Hulan county, Heilongjiang province, northeast China, she ran away from home, where she was being pushed by her father (Zhang Weizhi) into an arranged marriage with Wang Enjia (Wu Chao), the son of a powerful family. In 1929 she ended up in Harbin, the provincial capital, and in 1931 went to university in Beiping (modern Beijing). Wang Enjia tracked her down and forced himself on her; she agreed to marry him as long as she could stay in Beiping and study. After Wang Enjia’s money ran out, the couple stayed at the house of a friend of his father in Harbin. The Japanese were already occupying the northeast of China. In 1932, after Xiao Hong found she was pregnant, Wang Enjia abandoned her, and she ended up living in the house’s attic, alone and in debt. Hearing about her plight, local journalist Xiao Jun (Huang Jue) helped her out and the two fell in love. When the Songhua River flooded the city, he rescued her. After giving birth, Xiao Hong sold the baby but Xiao Jun returned the money to the woman who bought it; they were again penniless, as he had meanwhile lost his job. Finally, Xiao Jun found employment teaching martial arts to boy (An Jichen) in the Feng family, but also started an affaire with the boy’s elder sister (Li Yiling). Xiao Hong penned her first story, The Death of Sister-in-Law Wang 王阿嫂的死, the couple joined the Petunia Club literary group, and all finally seemed well. But with writers being arrested, they decided to move south, away from the advancing Japanese. In Shanghai, 1934, Xiao Hong finally met her idol, the writer Lu Xun (Sun Weimin), who helped her out. But soon events conspired to send her on travels to Japan; to Linfen, Shanxi province, where she met an admirer, Duanmu Hongliang (Wang Renjun), whom she married after splitting with Xiao Jun; to Wuhan, and finally to Hong Kong.

REVIEW

In an era renowned for tragic lives of artists, Heilongjiang-born writer Xiao Hong (1911-42) – best known for The Field of Life and Death 生死场 and the posthumous Tales of Hulan River 呼兰河传 – packed more than her fair share of struggle and pain into her short span. All of this, and northeast China’s wintry landscape, ends up looking fabulous in widescreen but rather short on involving drama in the centenary biopic Falling Flowers 萧红 by director Huo Jianqi 霍建起. After his flirtation with a more realist style in the sappy, Taiwan-set romance Snowfall in Taipei 台北飘雪 (2009), Huo stays within the well-varnished, chapter-by-chapter style he brought to his last movie, political biopic The Seal of Love 秋之白华 (2011), but without its metaphysical power.

The fault lies mainly with the script, for which Huo’s usual collaborator, his wife Su Xiaowei 苏小卫  (aka Si Wu 思芜), receives only secondary credit to Yi Fuhai 乙福海, deputy director of Heilongjiang Broadcasting’s Film & TV Office, whose approach to Xiao Hong’s story is fairly routine. Structured as a series flashbacks from her sick bed in wartime Hong Kong, the movie trots through the key elements in her life (escape from a feudal family, education at university, pregnancy and poverty, the chaos of the Sino-Japanese War) and her various men (an imposed fiance, a saviour-cum-womaniser, a real love) without constructing a greater story arc. More problematically, the writers go for a literary style of dialogue that seems to try to replicate the lucid poetical style of Xiao Hong’s writing. Within a less pedestrian, more impressionistic format, this could have worked, but here it seems simply unnatural.

The film’s biggest plus is its photography, not by Huo’s regular d.p. Sun Ming 孙明 but by newcomer Shi Luan 石栾, whose approach is slightly less burnished but creates one another another memorable image using the cold light of northeast China and much chiaroscuro. Production values throughout are very fine, both in interior details and in big exterior sequences like the flooding of a whole street in Harbin. Though dramatically the film seems over-long at two hours, one’s eyes are always ravished.

The other plus is the central performance by Heilongjiang-born actress Song Jia 宋佳 – aka Xiao Song Jia 小宋佳, to distinguish her from an identically named 1980s star – who’s been gradually building a body of work in generic films like Help 救我 (2007), Once Upon a Time in Tibet 西藏往事 (2010) and Cold Steel 遍地狼烟 (2011). In a role originally intended for cute actress-singer Wang Luodan 王珞丹 (My Airhostess Roommate 恋爱前規则, 2009; Driverless 无人驾驶, 2010), the 31-year-old Song brings a quiet dignity to the part, even though she looks little like the real-life Xiao Hong. As her first big love, Huang Jue 黄觉 (Wheat 麦田, 2009; Fallen City 倾城, 2010) makes a virile partner, while TV drama actress Li Yiling 李依玲 does much in a few scenes as his mistress.

The film’s Chinese title is simply Xiao Hong’s name. [In 2014 another biopic of Xiao Hong was released: The Golden Era 黄金时代, directed by Hong Kong’s Xu Anhua 许鞍华 (Ann Hui) and starring Tang Wei 汤唯.]

CREDITS

Presented by Talent International Film (CN), Heilongjiang People’s Broadcasting Station (CN), China Film (CN), China Movie Channel (CN). Produced by Heilongjiang Provincial Party Committee Publicity Department (CN), Harbin Municipal Committee Publicity Department (CN), China Film (CN), Heilongjiang Provincial Broadcasting Film & TV Office (CN), Talent International Film (CN), China Movie Channel (CN).

Script: Yi Fuhai, Su Xiaowei. Photography: Shi Luan. Editing: Yu Xi. Music: Shu Nan. Production design: Lv Feng. Costume design: Cao Li. Sound: Chao Jun. Visual effects: Hao Bing.

Cast: Song Jia (Zhang Naiying, aka Xiao Hong/Qiao Yin), Huang Jue (Liu Honglin, aka Xiao Jun), Zhang Bo (Luo Binji), Wang Renjun (Duanmu Hongliang), Wu Chao (Wang Enjia), Li Yiling (Miss Feng), Mi Zian [Lu Yujie] (Xu), Sun Weimin (Lu Xun), Zhang Tong (Xu Guangping, Lu Xun’s wife), Li Fengxu (landlord), Wang Tongran (Ni Dalu), Lu Siyuan (Shu Qun), Zhang Weizhi (Xiao Hong’s father), Yang Liping (Xiao Hong’s stepmother), Li Hanchen (grandfather), Jiang Xinyi (young Xiao Hong), Ding Zijia (Zhang Xiuke), Cao Shiping (Pei), Wen Jiejie (editor), Li Hongquan (hotel manager), Zhao Rongzhang (hotel-room inspector), An Jichen (Miss Feng’s younger brother), Ge Si (driver), Bao Zi (Uchiyama), Chen Pengyu (Haiying), Li Wenlong (Xiao Jun’s friend), Zhao Leilei (nurse), An Yu (teacher).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Competition), 20 Jun 2012.

Release: China, 8 Mar 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 7 Jul 2012.)