Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan

过昭关

China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.

Director: Huo Meng 霍猛.

Rating: 6/10.

Simple but involving portrait of an old man and his grandson who journey across Henan province.

STORY

Yuanma village, Taikang county, Henan province, central China, the present day, summer. Li Yunsheng (Wan Zhong) brings his young son Li Yining (Li Yunhu), 7, to spend the summer with his grandfather Li Fuchang (Yang Taiyi), 77, in his home village. Li Yining has no one to play with at home, and his father is too busy with construction work and his mother is about to give birth again. Initially, Li Yunsheng is not keen on staying with the old man: the house is very simple, the roof leaks and there are mosquitoes. One day, while selling his watermelons at market, Li Fuchang hears from a customer (Zhao Famin) that an old friend in Sanmenxia, Han Yutang (Jia Leshan), is still alive but in poor health. Although the city is a long way away, Li Fuchang decides to visit him, and Li Yining, who’s quite bored, agrees to come along. They start out on Li Fuchang’s electric three-wheeler but don’t make it far before the battery runs out. Li Fuchang borrows a petrol-driven three-wheeler and they start out again, on a journey that should take four to five days. That night they sleep by the roadside and Li Fuchang tells his grandson the story of Zhaoguan (on the border between the ancient states of Chu and Wu) and how their journey has a similar flavour; he also tells how he was accused during the Cultural Revolution of being a Rightist, both his parents died, and he survived the labour-reform camp only with the help of three other friends, of whom Han Yutang is the sole survivor. Next day they meet a lone angler (Ma Zhe) by a river and start chatting. He says he doesn’t dare go back home to the provincial capital, Zhengzhou, as he owes money to his relatives after being cheated in business; Li Fuchang tells him a story about his own relatives in the past, demonstrating how you can’t control your own fate. Later they meet a lorry driver (Mao Fuchang) whose vehicle has broken down, and Li Fuchang lends him the three-wheeler to get some spare parts. The driver later gives them a lift and that night they sleep in his lorry. Next day they continue their journey, spending the night with an old beekeeper (Zhang Xueqin) and talking about the old days, especially the 1950s. Next day they arrive in Sanmenxia – to a surprise.

REVIEW

A simple tale simply told, Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan 过昭关 could almost be titled A Summer with Grandpa, as a young boy and his ancient relative set off in a three-wheeler to visit a dying friend of the latter, hundreds of kilometres away on the opposite side of Henan province. However, this second feature by Henan-born writer-director Huo Meng 霍猛, 35, is not told from the point of view of the boy; it’s also neither a pure road movie nor a mellow elegy to cross-generational friendship. Instead, it’s more a simple portrait of an old survivor – a man who’s weathered the many storms of New China with a philosophical attitude and quiet determination. The kind of chamber movie that’s more likely nowadays to end up on CCTV-6’s China Movie Channel, the film made slightly less at the box office than its reported budget of RMB400,000.

The picture couldn’t be different in content and flavour from Huo’s debut feature, buddy movie My Best Friends 我的狐朋狗友 (2016), though it’s almost as striking in its own way. Huo dedicates the film to his own grandfather, who often talked of visiting an old comrade but never got around to it before passing away. In Crossing the Border – Zhaoguan, the 77-year-old Li Fuchang (genially played by Yang Taiyi 杨太义) has no such hesitation: after hearing by chance that an old pal who helped him survive eight years in a labour camp during the Cultural Revolution is now in poor health, he simply decides to get on his old three-wheeler and drive hundred of kilometres to visit him. His seven-year-old grandson, who’s been dumped on him for the summer by his busy parents, agrees to come along for the adventure.

Along the road the duo meet various types – an angler, a lorry driver, a beekeeper – who spark meditations by the old man on his own life and life in general. The film is at it weakest when visualising past eras in a couple of (modest) flashbacks and its strongest when the grandfather just talks, in one case recalling his obviously traumatic years in a Cultural Revolution labour camp after being denounced as a Rightist, but with no visible anger. Only one episode leaves the viewer wanting more, the encounter with the old beekeeper who is a similar age and has the same memories of the 1950s. Throughout all this, the boy is merely an observer, not a participant, in the journey.

And that journey only occupies the central 50 minutes of the film. It’s topped and tailed by substantial scenes in the old man’s village which are just as important in their observation: the busy-busy father who dumps his young son for the summer, the city boy’s initial boredom with country life and its inconveniences, the old man’s stoical (but always optimistic) attitude towards life, and so on. The final scenes, as he’s left alone again, are quietly moving in a pragmatic way, underlining Li Fuchang rather than the boy as the central character.

With its cast of non-pros, the film is largely a one-man production by Huo, as producer, writer, director and editor. The only other major contributor on the technical side is d.p. Wang Zhuo 王卓, whose clean, neatly composed widescreen photography is always a delight without being photogenic for its own sake. Pacing is natural and un-arty.

The film shouldn’t be confused with the Yunnan-set love story Crossing the Border 非常之恋 (2012), a China Movie Channel production written and directed by Zhang Zeming 张泽鸣.

CREDITS

Presented by Floating Light (Foshan) Film & Culture (CN), Wuxi Picturesque Landcape Film & Culture (CN), Zhongsheng Chuangxin (Beijing) Culture Media (CN).

Script: Huo Meng. Photography: Wang Zhuo. Editing: Huo Meng. Music: none. Art direction: uncredited. Sound: Li Tao, Wu Wei.

Cast: Yang Taiyi (Li Fuchang), Li Yunhu (Li Yining), Wan Zhong (Li Yunsheng), Ma Zhe (angler), Mao Fuchang (lorry driver), Zhang Xueqin (beekeeper), Nie Dongcai (Li Fuhe), Nie Yunchao (Li Yunjie), Jia Leshan (Han Yutang), Shao Mingwei (Han Hongsheng), Wang Jianguo (old man in hospital ward), Guo Baojian (Li Baojian, vehicle repairer), Zhao Famin (man in watermelon market), Huo Meng (Wu Zixu), Xu Qidong (Dong Gaogang), Duan Liutao (policeman), Jing Shuai (Xiaoshuai, policeman), Yang Gaowei (sedan-chair porter).

Premiere: Pingyao Film Festival (New Generation China), 17 Oct 2018.

Release: China, 20 May 2019.