To the Fore

破风

Hong Kong/China, 2015, 2.35:1, 124 mins.

Director: Lin Chaoxian 林超贤 [Dante Lam].

Rating: 4/10.

Dramatically lame drama about bicycle racers never gets its wheels off the ground.

STORY

Gaoxiong, Taiwan, the present day. Easygoing bicycle racer Qiu Ming (Peng Yuyan) and the more serious Qiu Tian (Dou Xiao) are offered contracts on the third-tier Team Radiant by trainer/manager Li (Lian Kai) as domestiques – riders who create a protective slipstream for the team’s sprinter so he can conserve energy prior to breaking out. Team Radiant, led by talented South Korean sprinter Jeong Ji-weon (Choi Shi-weon), performs well during a multi-stage race through Taiwan. Meanwhile, both Qiu Ming and Qiu Tian court Huang Shiyao (Wang Luodan), a once promising rider who had a pulmonary thrombosis six months earlier but is already back in competitive training with the women’s Team Virgo. When Jeong Ji-weon is not well, Qiu Tian is promoted to take his place as sprinter on a race through Taiwan’s highest peak, Wuling; in the event, it’s Qiu Ming who saves the day, despite foul play by a member of the rival Team Phantom. Afterwards, while drinking in a bar with Qiu Ming, Huang Shiyao meets his alcoholic mother, Xiaowei (Ke Shuqin), with whom he has a difficult relationship. When Li learns his bank can no longer provide a loan, he realises Radiant will never become a second-tier team and encourages the talented Jeong Ji-weon to pursue his career elsewhere. He also arranges a place for Qiu Ming as a sprinter on Hong Kong’s second-tier Team Aeolus. Despite being offered a place as a domestique on Aeolus, Qiu Tian chooses to become a sprinter in a local Taiwan team. A year later, after a race in Hong Kong, Qiu Ming has a public argument with a domestique, Chen Weiwen, that gets Aeolus bad press; in Taiwan, Qiu Tian is under-performing as a sprinter. Qiu Ming and Huang Shiyao finally meet again during a race in Shanghai in which Jeong Ji-weon is also taking part. But when Qiu Ming loses his temper again – following dirty tricks by Jeong Ji-weon’s manager, unbeknownst to Jeong Ji-weon himself – he also rows with Huang Shiyao.

REVIEW

The scenery and aerial photography score over the actors and their wheels in To the Fore 破风, a dramatically lame drama about professional bicycle racers that finds Hong Kong action ace Lin Chaoxian [Dante Lam] further slipping off the perch he briefly regained a couple of years ago with boxing drama Unbeatable 激战 (2013). A variable director who’s at his best in dark crime thrillers (Beastcops 野兽刑警, 1998; Beast Stalker 证人, 2008; The Stool Pigeon 缐人, 2010), Lin is too often a hostage to the quality of his co-writers, and here he’s without Wu Weilun 吴炜伦 [Jack Ng], who’s penned some of his best movies of the past decade. Though Lin is clearly dealing with a sport close to his heart, the screenplay, co-written with Lin Feng 林逢 [Terry Lam] (Lan Kwai Fong 善爱夜蒲, 2011; Due West: Our Sex Journey 一路向西, 2012) and Hou Yingheng 侯颖珩 [Silver Hau] (The Stolen Years 被偷走的那五年, 2013; Girls 闺蜜, 2014), isn’t up to the job of fleshing out his story in any original ways, and is littered with gauche/awful dialogue and undeveloped characters.

Bicycle racing is one event in which Hong Kong has made a minor international mark – winning it a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics – but the samey sport doesn’t make very dramatic film material, except when someone crashes. It’s the characters who should elevate the material, and a more dramatically trenchant director than Lin might have made To the Fore work. As it is, this episodic, undernourished story of two cyclists pursuing their dreams and the same girl ends up as a two-hour wannabe bromance with some nice photography.

As the easy-going charmer of the two protagonists, Taiwan’s Peng Yuyan [Eddie Peng] adds to his growing roster of muscle roles (a gymnast in Jump Ashin! 翻滚吧！阿信, 2011; boxer in Lin’s Unbeatable; martial artist in Rise of the Legend 黄飞鸿  英雄有梦, 2014) but lacks the naturalness and star charisma to make his role dominate. As his competitive pal, China-born, Canada-raised Dou Xiao 窦骁 [Shawn Dou] (Under the Hawthorn Tree 山楂树之恋, 2010), who previously acquitted himself okay as a car driver in Racer Legend 赛车传奇(2011), mostly looks serious and bares his teeth a lot. Caught between the two bromancers, China’s Wang Luodan 王珞丹, who co-starred unremarkably with Peng in Rise of the Legend, brings charm but not much heft to a role that’s shunted around by the writers as if they don’t know what to do with her.

As the star rider both pals yearn to emulate, South Korean boybander-actor Choi Shi-weon 최시원 | 崔始源 pops up now and then but is wooden when he should be charismatic. In fact, in just two scenes Taiwan’s Ke Shuqin 柯淑勤 (the supportive mother in Din Tao: Leader of the Parade 阵头, 2012) brings more character to the table, as the whisky-swigging mother of Peng’s character, than anyone else in the cast.

The widescreen photography by Hong Kong’s Chen Chuqiang 陈楚强 (Lan Kwai Fong; Better and Better 越来越好之村晚, 2013) and stunning aerial work by Taiwan’s Cai Jialing 蔡嘉岭 in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and South Korea make an attractive frame for the action, all propulsively cut and scored, with Hong Kong composer Li Yunwen 黎允文 [Henry Lai] often slipping into Carl Orff mode. (The first 50 minutes is often like a tourist ad for Taiwan.) Inexplicably, the film has been selected as Hong Kong’s foreign-language entry for the Oscars. Its Chinese title literally means “Breaking Wind”; a politer translation would be “Pushing Wind”, referring to the role of domestiques in creating a protective slipstream for a sprinter to conserve energy.

CREDITS

Presented by Evergrande Pictures (CN), Emperor Film Production (HK). Produced by Film Fireworks (HK).

Script: Lin Chaoxian [Dante Lam], Lin Feng [Terry Lam], Hou Yingheng [Silver Hau]. Draft script: Zheng Shanyu. Original story: Lin Chaoxian [Dante Lam]. Photography: Chen Chuqiang. Editing: Chen Qihe, Pan Xiong, Peng Zhengxi [Curran Pang]. Music: Li Yunwen [Henry Lai]. Art direction: Lin Ziqiao. Costume design: Huang Jiabao [Stephanie Wong]. Sound: Zheng Yingyuan, Ye Zhaoji. Action: Huang Weiliang [Jack Wong]. Visual effects: Yu Guoliang, He Junyang (Free-D Workshop). Aerial photography: Cai Jialing. Technical advisors: Domino Chau, Mauro Gianetti.

Cast: Peng Yuyan [Eddie Peng] (Qiu Ming), Dou Xiao [Shawn Dou] (Qiu Tian), Choi Shi-weon (Jeong Ji-weon), Wang Luodan (Huang Shiyao), Chen Jiale (Simon), Ouyang Na’na (Chen Yiqiao, Li’s daughter), Lian Kai (Li, Team Radiant’s trainer), Li Dan (Qiqi, the news photographer), Qiu Junru (Lin Shengde, Team Phantom cyclist), Zhu Jianran (He Shu’en, Team Phantom cyclist), Ke Shuqin (Xiaowei, Qiu Ming’s mother), Ou Jintong (South Korean financier), Wu Jialong (Bin/Ben), Liu Bili (Emily), Yao Caiying (Team Virgo trainer), Huang Ziqian (Zhang, Team Radiant’s assistant trianer), Lin Hengyu (Happy Bar manager), Lin Zongyu (Boss Liu), Li Yongkang (banker), Yang Zhilong (photographer), Rui Costa (himself).

Release: Hong Hong, 6 Aug 2015; China, 7 Aug 2015.

(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 28 Sep 2015.)