Beijing Flickers

有种

China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.

Director: Zhang Yuan 张元.

Rating: 7/10.

Strong leads and a verismo look make this portrait of drifting demi-monders an easy ride.

STORY

Beijing, the present day. San Bao (Duan Bowen) has lost his job, his dog Lucky, and his girlfriend Chengcheng (Xiao Yuyu), who left him for a rich guy and is now pregnant. Drowning his sorrows in drink, he tries to eat a glass in a bar and ends up in hospital, where he meets Xiaoshi (Shi Shi), a poet-cum-transvestite club performer who is recovering from plastic surgery in the next bed. San Bao’s best friend, Wang Ming (Lv Yulai), with whom he first came to Beijing, has a good job as a chauffeur and a wannabe actress girlfriend, Taozi (Qin Zihan). After checking himself out of hospital, as he can’t afford the bill, and finding his lodgings are about to be knocked down, San Bao returns to the bar to pick up his mobile phone from the young woman, Youzi (Li Xinyun), who sent him to hospital. Youzi is vocalist/songwriter in a band that performs there, led by lead guitarist Er Mao (Liu Lei); she also shares a flat with barmaid Tao Hui (Wang Zinuo) and another young woman, Su Mo (Han Wenwen), who’s been abused by a gangster. San Bao moves out of Wang Ming’s flat, as he can’t stand the two-timing Taozi, and moves in with Xiaoshi. As the first snow of winter falls, San Bao, Wang Ming and Xiaoshi are joined by Youzi in an evening’s drinking and walking. Subsequently, however, Youzi’s life is thrown into disarray by some news from Er Mao and his girlfriend Lingzi (Ge Xinyi).

REVIEW

Working again with his current muse, actress-writer Li Xinyun 李昕芸, and tangentially returning to the wannabe world he explored two decades ago in Beijing Bastards 北京杂种 (1993), maverick writer-director Zhang Yuan 张元 fashions a mellow look at friendship and loyalties filtered through contemporary China’s materialism and fragmenting social structures. The screenplay of Beijing Flickers 有种 – by writer and popular microblogger Kong Ergou 孔二狗, Yang Yishu 杨弋枢 (Chongqing Blues 日照重庆, 2010), Li and Zhang – wisely concentrates on its characters rather than underlining a theme already explored in so many Mainland movies, with the simple device of a central figure who is rendered mute by a self-inflicted mouth injury as relationships change between a group of acquaintances.

Heard as the voice-over narrator, but never speaking on screen, San Bao functions as a kind of observer-cum-confessional for a motley group of Beijing demi-monders, including his best friend from the provinces who’s now working as a driver for a sleazy boss, a female vocalist in a small band in a bar, a self-professed poet who’s also a transvestite club performer, and various others. The loose ties between the characters, as they drift around the capital in search of money, jobs and careers are shown by Zhang more with a twinkle in the eye than with downbeat realism, though the physical settings in which they lead their lives are spot-on in a hard Beijing way. As relationships are betrayed in the name of business, San Bao drifts through their worlds, with seemingly nothing more to lose after being deprived of his job, girlfriend, lodgings and even his dog – though the movie does finally end on an upbeat.

After playing the cute younger teacher in Zhang’s Little Red Flowers 看上去很美 (2005), under her birth name Li Xiaofeng 李晓枫, Li made a striking impression in Zhang’s previous Dada’s Dance 达达 (2008), as a mixed-up, unwitting temptress worshipped by a neighbour. Swapping that film’s hot, summery Wuhan setting for scungy, wintry Beijing, Li’s big-eyed, velvety-voiced singer is an equally resonant creation, less mixed-up but tougher and more sad. Almost as good are Lv Yulai 吕聿来 (The Red Awn 红色康拜因, 2007; Knitting 牛朗织女, 2008; Here There 这里  那里, 2011) as San Bao’s best friend – though his character could do with more backgrounding – and Shi Shi 时诗 as a rather sweet transvestite poet. Though the film’s characters are obvious constructs, Zhang doesn’t overdo their marginal existence, and especially in the case of Li’s bar singer draws a touching performance that’s free of melodrama. Unlike Dada, which lost its dramatic thread in the second half, Beijing Flickers has a clear arc from start to finish, even though it is less emotionally ambitious than the previous film.

Technically, the film is always good-looking and well-composed within the frame, catching a kind of wintry poetry from the cold-light cityscapes. The script was inspired by a photo exhibition on the generation born in the 1980s that Zhang staged in Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, as a modern version of what he attempted to do with an earlier generation in Beijing Bastards. The exhibition was published in book form in Sep 2010. The Chinese title of that, and the film, is a slang term meaning “got balls”. Zhang himself cameos uncredited as a “big boss”, though the scene could easily be removed.

CREDITS

Presented by Beijing Asia Union Culture & Media (CN), China Film (CN), Beijing Century Good-Tiding (CN). Produced by Beijing Century Good-Tiding (CN).

Script: Kong Ergou, Yang Yishu, Li Xinyun, Zhang Yuan. Photography: Zhang Yuan. Editing: Wu Yixiang. Music: Liu Yijun. Song lyrics/vocals: Sabrina Li. Art direction: An Bin. Costumes: Yue Minjun. Styling: Zhang Jing. Sound: Zhao Bo. Executive director: Zhang Lei.

Cast: Duan Bowen (San Bao), Li Xinyun (Youzi), Shi Shi (Xiao Shi), Lv Yulai (Wang Ming), Han Wenwen (Su Mo), Wang Jingchun (Fang), Qin Zihan (Taozi, Wang Ming’s girlfriend), Wang Zinuo (Tao Hui), Xiao Yuyu (Chengcheng), Ge Xinyi (Lingzi, Er Mao’s girlfriend), Liu Lei (Er Mao), Xia Yan (Lao Jiu), Ling Xiao (Saner), Zhang Zhitong (landlady), Wang Yunfeng (Jia Guangli), Zhao Ningyu, Wang Ming (policemen), Ma Xiaoqing (nightclub actress), Zhang Lei (her friend), Min Xiding (Fang’s friend), Li Haowen (Fang’s son), Yang Ming (midget at hotel), Zhang Yuan (big boss), Gao Qunshu, Kong Ergou, Shen Tang, Qin Yuke, Zhao Ying, Li Ji, Zhao Ningyu, Wang Qibo, Han Yang.

Premiere: Toronto Film Festival (Vanguard), 10 Sep 2012

Release: China, 8 Nov 2013.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 1 Mar 2013.)