Spring Tide

春潮

China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 122 mins.

Director: Yang Li’na 杨荔钠.

Rating: 5/10.

Potentially powerful mother-daughter drama fails to deliver, thanks to a woolly, unbalanced script.

STORY

A city in northeast China, late autumn, the present day. Social-affairs journalist Guo Jianbo (Hao Lei) is a single mother living with her nine-year-old daughter Guo Wanting (Qu Junxi) in the cramped flat of her divorced mother Ji Minglan (Jin Yanling). Very involved in the local community, to whom she shows a caring face, Ji Minglan looks after Guo Wanting – whose schooling she also pays for – when Guo Jianbo is out. Away from the community, however, Ji Minglan is prey to violent mood swings, endlessly criticising Guo Jianbo for not being a good mother. Despite that, Guo Jianbo and the precocious Guo Wanting have a good relationship, with the latter understanding exactly what is going on. Ji Minglan has an unofficial “fiance”, the divorced Zhou (Li Wenbo), who frequently comes for meals and plays peacemaker between her and Guo Jianbo. At night Guo Jianbo often visits her free-thinking lover (Zhao Yang) to escape the atmosphere at home. At work she’s appreciated by her editor (Li Qiang), an old schoolmate, but asked to soften her writing a little so as not to put investors off. On her way back from a literary soiree held by her friend Wu Qiong (Zhang Ziqi), Guo Jianbo appears to see a wraith-like woman (Wang Ya’nan) reaching out to her on the metro. Arriving home, she finds Ji Minglan upset over the unexpected suicide of an old woman in the same block. Ji Minglan takes out her anger on her daughter, and that night Guo Jianbo dreams of her mother being forcibly taken away by men in surgical clothing. Visiting Zhou’s flat, and touched by his kindness, Ji Minglan breaks down and confesses inner secrets about her previous marriage and sex life. Guo Jianbo’s editor tries to set her up with a wealthy businessman, Hao (Yang Junbo), but Guo Jianbo sabotages the relationship. As Ji Minglan’s mood swings get worse, Guo Jianbo and her daughter are forced to leave the flat one night; on their return, Ji Minglan expressly starts to turn Guo Jianbo’s daughter against her. Then tragedy intervenes.

REVIEW

What should be a powerful family drama played out between a domineering mother and her journalist daughter keeps promising more than it ever delivers in Spring Tide 春潮, the second feature by documentarian Yang Li’na 杨荔钠, 47, following her ludicrously over-egged debut on repressed female desire, Longing for the Rain 春梦 (2013). Tide is a significant improvement on Longing – which was improvised from a two-page synopsis, and looked like it – but thanks to a dramatically unbalanced screenplay it largely ends up as a showcase for Taiwan veteran Jin Yanling 金燕玲 [Elaine Jin] rather than a true ensemble drama, and is way over-stretched at two hours. Following its premiere in competition at last summer’s 2019 Shanghai film festival, it was released directly online this month via VOD platform iQiyi.

Born in Changchun, northeast China, Yang started as a dancer, then moved to theatre, then briefly to film acting (playing the second female lead in Platform 站台, 2000, under the stage name Yang Tianyi 杨天乙), and finally concentrating on documentaries, including the companion pieces Old Men 老头 (2000) and The Love of Mr. An 老安 (2008), and Wild Grass 野草 (2009). For her second feature, she’s amped up the talent in front of and behind the camera, with a strong accent on names associated with indie/arty fare. The massively experienced Jin, 65, is paired with Mainland indie queen Hao Lei 郝蕾 (Summer Palace 颐和园, 2006; Mystery 浮城谜事, 2012) as the daughter, while noted Asia-based US d.p. Jake Pollock 包轩鸣 and veteran Taiwan editor Liao Qingsong 廖庆松 head the crew. Japan’s Hanno Yoshihiro 半野喜弘, who scored Platform as well as other films by Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯, returns as composer, while Liao doubles as creative producer 监制 along with Japan’s arty Ichiyama Shozo 市山尚三, another Jia denizen.

None of them, however, can solve the film’s prime weakness – a woolly script with no idea of dramatic development. As in Longing, things coast along for the first half-hour or so, as a potentially interesting situation is laid out; but after that, Yang can’t take the material to the next level and ends up simply repeating the same rows between mother and daughter before suddenly ending things with a cliched plot device and then finishing with an arty, fantastical coda that plays up to the film’s title but otherwise remains obscure. The occasional surreal moments (centred on the daughter’s daydreams and nightmares) seem out of place in such a naturalistic movie, though they’re not as distracting as all the superstitious hocus-pocus in the second half of Longing.

Aside from the weak writing, there’s also a serious misbalance between the two protagonists. Jin’s mother is a compulsive motormouth, whether dispensing community balm as an upright citizen or tongue-lashing her daughter in private; it’s an exaggerated role but at least makes sense when the audience hears of her own background. In contrast, Hao’s daughter is meant to be a hard-hitting, respected social journalist/author but, apart from one scene at the start, she’s hardly seen at work and is unbelievably passive, with very little dialogue, even in the face of massive provocation by her monstrous mother. Thanks to sheer technique, Jin just about makes her character come off, if with little sympathy; but Hao, 41, who’s certainly capable of strong playing, just mopes around silently, and doesn’t bring much emotion to her one big soliloquy that comes (way too late) near the end.

Other characters come and go, with no developed part in the drama. Most noticeable in this respect is the mother’s mature lover, played likeably enough by character actor Li Wenbo 李文波 but given no reason in the script why he should be so tolerant of her outbursts. As the daughter’s precocious nine-year-old daughter, child actress Qu Junxi 曲隽希, 11, so good as the rockin’ keyboardist in City of Rock 缝纫机乐队 (2017), shows a quiet intelligence, never overplaying her neutral role between the two women.

Pollock’s widescreen camera is handheld throughout, often framed tightly on the actors’ faces, both inside and outside the cramped flat; his lighting is natural. Hanno’s sparse chamber score gently sketches atmosphere, though in the coda and end titles Chopin’s Nocturne No. 21 takes over. The film was shot in and around Lin’s hometown Changchun.

CREDITS

Presented by Shanghai Aim Media (CN). Produced by Shanghai Aim Media (CN).

Script: Yang Li’na. Script advice: Zhao Yinguo, Pu Minfeng. Photography: Jake Pollock. Editing: Liao Qingsong. Music: Hanno Yoshihiro. Art direction: Zhang Jietao. Costume design: Zhang Chuhan. Sound: Du Duzhi, Jiang Yizhen.

Cast: Hao Lei (Guo Jianbo), Jin Yanling [Elaine Jin] (Ji Minglan), Qu Junxi (Guo Wanting), Li Wenbo (Zhou), Huang Shanghe (Huang, masseur), Zhao Yang (Guo Jianbo’s lover), Zhang Ziqi (Wu Qiong), Li Qiang (newspaper editor), Han Jiajuan (Cui Yingzi), Yang Junbo (Hao), Lv Dongmei (great-aunt), Wang Ya’nan (woman in red dress), Yan Xiao (community-choir director).

Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival (Competition), 18 Jun 2019.

Release: China, 17 May 2020 (online).