For the Memory Never Forgotten
黑蝴蝶
China, 2017, b&w/colour, 2.35:1, 103 mins.
Director: An Zhanjun 安战军.
Rating: 7/10.
Quality ensemble drama elevated by a terrific lead performance from actress Liu Mintao.
STORY
Tangshan city, northeast Hebei province, northern China, the present day. Wheelchair-bound painter Zhou Kunpeng (Li Jian) works on a picture of his “elder sister” Qi Lin, whom he last saw 18 years ago. His mind goes back to Apr 1991 when, with both his parents dead, he arrived as an 18-year-old (Li Jiacheng) from the countryside to stay with his paternal aunt Zhou Lili (Wu Zitong), a hospital nurse, and her lover Yu Jianbo (Huo Qing), a hospital doctor, so he can have a chance to study art at university. Later that same day, however, while Zhou Lili is out, Yu Jianbo is surprised to see his wife, Qi Lin (Liu Mintao), at the door. She has been let out from prison a year earlier for good behaviour. She immediately wants to make love but Yu Jianbo is not very receptive, and when Qi Lin finds a bra in his bathroom she realises why. When Zhou Lili returns, Qi Lin kicks her out. Yu Jianbo says Zhou Lili is a hospital colleague and is now pregnant by him; he suggests he and Qi Lin divorce, with her living downstairs for the time being with Zhou Kunpeng. That night Qi Lin gets drunk with an old friend, nightclub boss Chao (Chen Chuhan), and later signs the divorce papers. Zhou Kunpeng is fascinated by the unconventional Qi Lin and starts sketching her from memory; one day she starts to be more friendly, giving him a lift to his art school on her motorbike. She sets up a clothing stall in a street market and one day, while she’s out, Zhou Kunpeng finds her prison release certificate in her room. Later, however, she has a furious row with him when she finds out he’s lying about something, and doesn’t talk to him for a month. One evening, when Yu Jianbo is out, Zhao Lili starts to give birth and is helped to get to hospital by Qi Lin. Meanwhile, at art school Zhou Kunpeng beats up a student (Zhang Tiancheng) who’s been bothering a girl, Xu Xiaohui (Wang Yifei), in class, and is only saved from being charged with assault by Qi Lin begging the student’s family on her knees. When Qi Lin moves out of Yu Jianbo’s house, Zhou Kunpeng eventually joins her. But then Xu Xiaohui starts coming on to Zhou Kunpeng.
REVIEW
Despite one of the clumsiest English titles in memory – the Chinese simply means “Black Butterfly” – For the Memory Never Forgotten 黑蝴蝶 is a quality drama by superior Mainland journeyman An Zhanjun 安战军 that’s elevated by a terrific lead performance by Mainland actress Liu Mintao 刘敏涛, with whom he’d already made two other movies (prison drama Brother 黑暗中的救赎, 2012, and village yarn The Unexpected 原祸, 2016). As in Unexpected, all of the flashback story (set in the early 1990s) is in b&w, in this case making up an uninterrupted 90% of the film – a decision which gives extra heft to Liu’s dark performance as a betrayed wife with an explosive temper. Alas, box office was a disastrous RMB90,000, a double shame given the all-round quality of the movie and Liu’s career-best playing.
Largely a TV actress, Shandong-born Liu, then just cresting 40, looks completely transformed as a tough, motorbike-riding ex-con who’s let out early for good behaviour only to find her doctor husband shacked up with a pregnant girlfriend. (The reason for her imprisonment is only revealed near the end.) Pragmatically accepting the situation, she gradually develops a “big sister” relationship with the girlfriend’s nephew, an impressionable 18-year-old who’s come to the big city – Tangshan in northern China – to study as a painter. The script by Xu Chao 徐超 (a writer-director in his own right, Vengeance Is Mine 六连煞, 2019) and Zhao Lei 赵磊 (an occasional collaborator with An, A Young Girl’s Destiny 逆袭, 2013) teasingly keeps the central relationship between the tough but principled older woman and impressionable teenager balanced on a knife-edge, with her always trying to keep the friendship “sisterly” and him gradually realising it’s more than platonic.
Like most of An’s ensemble relationship movies – made between war dramas and other routine assignments – the underlying theme is that of social rules to live by, how the bigger community picture is as important as individual emotions, though here from a slightly different angle. Memory isn’t a Beijing-courtyard film like his Hutong Days 胡同里的阳光 (2008) or Glittering Days 万家灯火 (2009), but it is about how to get along with other people and, in the final stretch, how the past can always rear up and spoil things.
Maturely glamorous but slightly tomboyish at the same time, Liu’s protagonist dominates the ensemble with her taut playing, always ready to explode on a matter of principle. She’s surrounded by strong performances from TV actors like Huo Qing 霍青 as her ex-husband; Wu Zitong 吴紫彤, 31, as his no-nonsense girlfriend; and Chen Chuhan 陈楚瀚, 46, as an underworld figure from the past. The main weakness is the playing by Li Jiacheng 李家成 (aka Li Yan 李砚), 23, as the teenager, whose early sexual innocence – especially in a scene where he stumbles on his “big sister” pleasuring herself in bed – doesn’t really convince, even for a country boy in the early 1990s.
Photography by Yuan Jiaping 袁佳平 (who shot An’s Brother and Forever Love 北京时间, 2015) is clean in b&w and richly coloured in the bookend scenes, while the delicate score by another occasional An collaborator, Yang Yilun 杨一伦, is conventional but effective. The Chinese title refers to a tattoo on the heroine’s back that has a special meaning to her.
CREDITS
Presented by Hao’an (Beijing) Movie TV Culture Media (CN). Produced by Hao’an (Beijing) Movie TV Culture Media (CN), Beijing Minghe Culture Communication (CN).
Script: Xu Chao, Zhao Lei. Photography: Yuan Jiaping. Editing: Wang Yongjie. Music: Yang Yilun. Art direction: Yang Baocheng. Costume design: Guo Lei. Sound: Liu Tao, Hu Yue, Zhang Xiaonan. Visual effects: Lu Jing, A Guru (Zhouren [Beijing] Culture Communication). Executive direction: Ren Tianlei.
Cast: Liu Mintao (Qi Lin), Huo Qing (Yu Jianbo), Wu Zitong (Zhou Lili), Li Jiacheng (Zhou Kunpeng), Chen Chuhan (Chao, nightclub owner), Guo Yongzhen (Yong/Scarface), Li Jian (middle-aged Zhou Kunpeng), Wang Yifei (Xu Xiaohui), Zhang Tiancheng (Zhang Min), Zhao Huan (Zhang Min’s elder sister), Li Xia (Zhang Min’s mother), Li Changqing (Zhang Min’s father), Ji Shuhai (thin-faced thug), Ru Chunlei (Ma Xiaojun), Guo Hao (judge), Li Ye (little brother), Li Changjun (lawyer), Guo Bao (policeman).
Premiere: Beijing Student Film Festival (Competition), 27 Apr 2017.
Release: China, 15 Sep 2018.