Justice in Northwest

西北风云

China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 97 mins.

Director: Huang Huang 黄璜.

Rating: 4/10.

Glimpses of a better, more offbeat movie still remain in the wreckage of this fraught production.

STORY

Lanzhou city, Gansu province, northwest China, 2015. Gao Qiao (Yu Nan) and Lu Hong (Ren Dahua) meet by chance when going to the rescue of a man in a car crash. Originally from Guangdong province, Lu Hong runs a small restaurant spcialising in claypot congee cooked to his own recipe; Gao Qiao is a senior detective in the local police force who’s always loved her food since childhood. Lu Hong invites her back for some congee but she feels nauseous and quickly leaves. A doctor confirms she has nothing wrong with her and is not even pregnant. Later she returns to Lu Hong’s and enjoys a special bowl he cooks for her. One month earlier, Gao Qiao had led a stakeout of a drugs sting in which an officer, Jiang (Gao Jie), had posed as a buyer to dealer You Yong (Wang Yanhui); Jiang had been knifed by You Yong’s younger brother You Xiong (Peng Jingci) and escaped; Gao Qiao had shot You Yong but had been seriously wounded in the head. As a result, she’d temporarily lost her sense of taste. Gao Qiao continues to visit Lu Hong’s restaurant, unaware that for years he’s also been a drugs manufacturer for the gang that supplied You Yong. Following You Yong’s death, however, Lu Hong has decided to throw in the job and devote himself to his first love, cooking. The gang is not happy about it. Meanwhile, following a tip-off from a bag-snatcher (Lin Xiaofan) over the whereabouts of You Xiong, the police start a citywide search. When Gao Qiao drops by one day and Lu Hong asks her what she does for a living, she hesitates and says she’ll tell him later. You Xiong continues to evade the police and murders Lai Ji (Wang Xiaolong), a police informer involved in the You Yong stakeout. During the investigation, the police find a link to Lu Hong, so Gao Qiao has no choice but to put his restaurant under surveillance, not knowing that he wants to turn a new leaf in his life. Meanwhile, You Xiong is looking for a chance to kill Gao Qiao.

REVIEW

Though it doesn’t often manifest itself in the finished product, there’s a potentially fascinating film lying somewhere in the wreckage of Justice in Northwest 西北风云, a crime drama-cum-offbeat love story between a police officer who likes her food and a smalltime chef who helps restore her sense of taste. Shot in late 2014/early 2015 and only released three years later, this first feature by Anhui-born writer-director Huang Huang 黄璜, now in his early 30s, has a fraught production history (see below) in which scenes remained unshot and postproduction was taken out of Huang’s hands. Though the film shows all the signs of a conventional patch-up job, there’s enough remaining in the performances by Hong Kong veteran Ren Dahua 任达华 [Simon Yam] and Mainland actress Yu Nan 余男 to give an idea of what it could have been. On release it sank with a puny RMB4 million.

Huang’s original title was 饕餮刑警 (roughly, “The Gluttonous Police Officer”), which gives a clue to both its quirky humour and offbeat story. A gruff police officer (Yu) and a claypot-congee cook (Ren) meet by chance, and his special recipe helps restore her sense of taste that’s been affected by a head injury during a drugs bust. Since childhood she’s always loved food, and making it has always been his first love; he’s a bachelor and she’s a divorcee, so a kind of wary relationship starts to bloom, nourished by their shared interest in food. But unknown to him she’s also a police officer and unknown to her he’s also involved with the gang she’s after.

It’s a nice idea, and what one could surmise was the film’s original tone can be still seen in many of the sequences between the experienced Ren and Yu, both actors of a certain age (then 59 and 38) who can bring a maturity that downplays the central relationship but is still aware of its lighter potential. Scenes of him playing a guitar to his congee, and of her shopping with a female colleague for more attractive clothes, have a blithe, unstated humour that’s also reflected in other material like the off-duty activities and easy banter of the staff at the police station. The sense of a different approach to a conventional genre is also heightened by the use of short scenes and fade-outs, some wordless sequences, and the general ensemble feel. Plus, the idea of basing much of the film in a police station that’s being redecorated – something that becomes a plot device near the end.

Despite all that, however, Justice fails to work as either a relationships or a crime film: the kind-of love affair has no real resolution because of the need to see justice done, and the crime/action elements are utterly conventional and patchily staged. The movie’s overall rhythm is choppy, some key linking material seems to be missing, the heavy oldstyle dubbing is off-putting, the score is either too lush or too kinetic, and the look varies from carefully lit (in most of Ren and Yu’s scenes together, shot by Hong Kong ace Li Yaohui 黎耀辉 [Lai Yiu-fai]) to pedestrian. Aside from Ren and Yu, Taiwan crime-film veteran Gao Jie 高捷 [Jack Kao] pops up briefly as an undercover policeman, Hong Kong heavy Peng Jingci 彭敬慈 glowers as a killer on the run, and tyro Mainland actress Xie Xintong 谢欣铜 adds some lightness as the only female colleague of Yu’s character.

According to Huang himself, he originally wrote the script in 2012 and finally started shooting on 26 Dec 2014. After 20 days, shooting stopped when the producer claimed he’d run out money; 10 days later it resumed under a new producer appointed by the financiers. By then the crew had partly changed – with, for example, Hong Kong d.p. Li replaced by compatriot Zheng Minqiang 郑民强 – and, due to the time lost by the stoppage, not all scenes had been shot by the end of the 50-day schedule. In late Feb 2015 Huang was asked to help sort out some editing problems posed by missing scenes and sound but he found they could only be solved by extra shooting. Two weeks later he was shown a cut in which the story had been changed so much that the relationships no longer made sense. Despite subsequent attempts to buy the film back and secure the copyright on his screenplay, that was the last he saw of the movie prior to its release three years later. Since then, Huang has directed the on-line feature The Revenge of the Plant 花悸, a sci-fi thriller based on a manga, that was released in Jan 2018 (see poster, left).

Justice was shot in Lanzhou – where it’s set – as well as in nearby Baiyin, both in dusty Gansu province. The final Chinese title (“Trouble in the Northwest”) is as generic as the English one.

CREDITS

Presented by China Vision Movie Media (Beijing) (CN), Huashi Youbang Film & TV Media (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Huashi Youbang Film & TV Media (Beijing) (CN), Huaxi Jiuding Film Culture Media (CN), Dalian Wuzhou Film & TV (CN).

Script: Huang Huang. Photography: Li Yaohui [Lai Yiu-fai], Zheng Minqiang. Editing: Li Jun. Music: Huang Xiaoqiu. Art direction: Peng Shaoshun. Styling: Zhao Yu. Sound: uncredited. Action: Wu Yonglun. Executive direction: Zhou Xiaoran, Sun Jingyan.

Cast: Ren Dahua [Simon Yam] (Lu Hong), Yu Nan (Gao Qiao), Gao Jie [Jack Kao] (Jiang), Xie Xintong (Xiaobai, policewoman), Li Zhuoyuan (Huotou, policeman), Yang Shuming (Zhou Xiang, policeman), Yang Shao’ang (Dachun), Yang Shaoxuan (Xiaochun), Wang Yanhui (You Yong, drug supplier), Peng Jingci (You Xiong, You Yong’s younger brother), Wang Xiaolong (Lai Ji, police informer), Liu Wenhao (food deliveryboy), Chen Guanyu (Feng), Lin Xiaofan (Sun Xiaohu, bag-snatcher), Du Yuming (drug boss), Lu Ling (drug boss’ woman), Dai Xinming, Li Wenyong, Zhu Hongzhen (drug gang members), Feng Jiayi (Fan Xiang, Gao Qiao’s ex-husband), Li Feng (Xiaofang), Zhan Kelin (Er Mao).

Release: China, 13 Apr 2018.