Father and Hero
侠路相逢
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 91 mins.
Director: Shao Yafeng 邵亚峰.
Rating: 4/10.
Crime/revenge drama set by the Yellow River is either a clever, lateral take on the genre or a confused mess.
STORY
Shenmu city, northern Shaanxi province, northern China, the present day. Zhou (Ran Hua), a shady businessman and art collector/trader, entertains Qin Jin (Jiang Wu) in his favourite nightclub, where he points out Niu Weiwei (Yao Rao), a hot dancer in a three-girl group. Zhou is courting Qin Jin as a potential client. Meanwhile, a special police task force, led by Jiang Han (Shao Bing), is on the trail of a smuggling gang dealing in artifacts stolen from nearby Shimao, a famous Neolithic site some 4,000 years old. (Twenty years ago Jiang Han was involved in a case in which, after a tip-off, he and two other detectives, Yang Yang and Niu Tianjiao [Ma Shuohan], had confronted a smuggling gang of a dozen or so people but had been seriously outgunned: he had been wounded and his two colleagues shot dead. Jiang Han had partly blamed himself for the deaths, and especially that of Niu Tianjiao, a young policeman whose wife [Wang Shuting] had just left him and his young daughter Niu Weiwei [Sang Yihua]. The gang leader, Mao, had fled, leaving the jade artifact behind with his old friend Chen San [Shi Wenzhong].) Since that time, Jiang Han has always since looked after Niu Weiwei’s welfare; she has her own flat, can play the piano, and works as a singer-dancer with two female friends (Liu Xiaojuan, Yuan Ming); her mother never visits her. Jiang Han is convinced the jade artifact never left the region, and that the gang leader, who wounded him and killed Yang Yang, is planning to retrieve it. Meanwhile, Zhou has Qin Jin checked out to see if he has any serious money, and is pleased to be told he has. After seeing Niu Weiwei in Zhou’s circle one evening, Jiang Han warns her to be careful whom she mixes with. Later, he asks her to quietly find out whether Zhou deals in any jade artifacts from Shimao. Seeing Niu Weiwei talking to Zhou, Qin Jin asks her to do him a favour by taking an envelope out of town to a friend, He Liuji (Zhu Bingqi), and also delivering a bag to someone called Lao Gui (Wang Shengquan). Niu Weiwei realises she is becoming involved in something illegal but continues nevertheless, as she is seemingly trusted by both Zhou and Qin Jin.
REVIEW
A cat-and-mouse smuggling-cum-revenge drama set by the imposing Jinshan gorge in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, Father and Hero 侠路相逢 is either a clever, lateral take on the usual crime genre cliches or a confused (and confusing) mess in which all the connecting material between scenes seems to have been cut out. The body of evidence points more towards the latter, which is a pity as there are some good performances here – especially by veterans Shao Bing 邵兵 and Jiang Wu 姜武 as the antagonists, plus newcomer Yao Rao 姚娆 as the girl caught between them – as well as some moments of visual power that exploit the primaeval majesty of the Loess plateau in northern Shaanxi province. Overall, however, Shandong-born writer-director Shao Yafeng 邵亚峰, who previously made the 10-minute short The Arrest 捕 (2012), tests his audience’s patience too often with one after another needlessly confusing sequence and a narrative that’s scarcely believable. When finally released, a year after premiering at the Shanghai film festival, local box office was a blah RMB11 million.
On the credit side, the leads carve strong profiles, especially Jiang as an ever-smiling but clearly roguish character whose game-plan is not fully revealed until the end and Shao, warmer here than usual, as the veteran cop still haunted by his colleagues’ deaths 20 years earlier. Unfortunately, in another of the screenplay’s weaknesses, there are hardly any scenes of the two playing off against each other. Instead, the middle ground is inhabited by Yao’s club dancer, whose father died in the shootout when she was a young girl and whose well-being Shao’s cop has looked after as a kindly “uncle”. Chinese Canadian Yao, who previously appeared in some period-action Chinese TV movies, does her best with the role and has the looks to go with it, but, like the others, doesn’t stir the emotions. That’s all down to the screenplay, whose dialogue is largely expository – including one jaw-dropping scene in which two characters chat in a corridor simply to keep the audience up to date – and which seems more interested in keeping the plotting as obscure as possible. The use of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment (which Jiang’s character carries around) as some kind of cultural/thematic marker is clumsy.
Technical credits are okay, with occasional (but not consistent) use of the Yellow River as a dramatic backcloth and a synths score, largely rhythmic, by Yuan Sihan 袁思翰 (Fighting Men of China 中国合伙人2, 2018) for the copious, often unexplained scenes of people driving around in cars. In a major surprise, veteran Hong Kong director Liu Guochang 刘国昌 [Lawrence Ah Mon], 70, whose last film was period druggie drama Dealer/Healer 毒。诫 (2017), is credited as creative producer 监制.
The film’s strange English title presumably refers to the girl’s perception of her dead father. The Chinese one is a pun on a proverbial phrase that describes two enemies forced to meet face to face on a narrow road. Here, the first character of the phrase, 狭 xiá (“narrow”), has been replaced with a homonym meaning “chivalrous” 侠.
CREDITS
Presented by Shaanxi Yimou Culture & Media (CN), Beijing Huanchen Culture & Media (CN). Produced by Shaanxi Yimou Culture & Media (CN), Beijing Huanchen Culture & Media (CN).
Script: Shao Yafeng, Zhu Bingqi, Li Jin. Photography: Yi Feng, Yang Ye. Editing: Shao Yafeng, Wang Xiaoqian. Music: Yuan Sihan. End-title song: Teng Hui. Vocal: Yu Landi. Art direction: Lu Xiang. Costume design: Sun Lufu, Xia Yuchen. Styling: Xiao Ya’nan. Sound: Wu En, He Wei. Action: Shen Yifeng. Visual effects: Meng Jifeng.
Cast: Shao Bing (Jiang Han), Jiang Wu (Qin Jin), Yao Rao (Niu Weiwei), Shi Wenzhong (Chen San), Wang Shengquan (Lao Gui/Old Ghost), Ma Shuohan (Niu Tianjiao/Niu Duzi/Calf), Ran Hua (Zhou), Hu Zengxue (Liu, nightclub boss lady), Sang Yihua (young Niu Weiwei), Wang Shuting (Niu Weiwei’s mother), Li Jin (smuggler with glasses), Zhu Bingqi (He Liuji), Liu Xiaojuan (Yi Lei, dancer), Yuan Ming (Yuan Er, dancer), Yang Yi (Zhou’s girlfriend).
Premiere: Shanghai Film Festival, 23 Jun 2018.
Release: China, 18 Oct 2019.