Insistence
守株人
China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 87 mins.
Director: Li Mingming 李明明.
Rating: 6/10.
Offbeat psychodrama centred on an obsessive teenager stumbles in the final furlong.
STORY
Qinzhou, China, 4 Dec 2011. Eight years after the murder of her grandmother (Xu Peiyun), with whom she lived after her parents split, Gu Jiajia (Yang Zi), a psychology student, still has nightmares about her death. She stays in her grandmother’s house, obsessively keeping a diary of her thoughts on audio cassettes and scrubbing the floorboards where the old lady died, 2,901 days ago. While helping her best friend Changchang (Liu Xiaoxiao) at her antiques stall, Gu Jiajia witnesses a customer accidentally knocked down by a taxi. When the taxi’s passenger (Luo Dahua) gets out to help, Gu Jiajia recognises him as Qi Dazhou, her grandmother’s murderer, from an antique bracelet he’s wearing. Despite being shown a file by a police friend (Wang Ye) that Qi Dazhou’s body was found in the sea two years ago, Gu Jiajia believes he’s still alive. Her estranged father (Lin Xue) tries to convince her otherwise, but Gu Jiajia finds the address of the man from the taxi driver and one day sees him leaving a block of flats there. Following him around, she hears his name is Sun Zhe, an antiques dealer. Meanwhile, her father wants her to get away from the city and study overseas, at Edinburgh University, but Gu Jiajia refuses. With the help of Changchang, Gu Jiajia gets inside the man’s flat and examines his papers, all of which say he is Sun Zhe. However, she still believes he is Qin Dazhou. Again with Changchang’s help, she plans to lure him round to her grandmother’s house and kill him. But then things start to go wrong.
REVIEW
An impressively offbeat psychodrama about a student who obsessively tracks a man whom she believes is her grandmother’s murderer, Insistence 守株人 stays on track for most of its running time but jumps the rails in a clumsily constructed ending. This first feature by writer-director Li Mingming 李明明, 31, has a lot going for it in the clean, precise direction, the focused performances of the main cast, the cold, wintry photography by d.p. Liu Zhangmu 刘章目 and the subtly supportive art direction of Hong Kong’s Su Guohao 苏国豪 – all of which earn the movie an extra point for craftsmanship. More’s the pity, therefore, that the final section, which delivers big clumps of explanation in an ungainly fashion, doesn’t measure up to the rest of the film – plus a score that slips into poppy music at key moments.
Though she’s not called upon to do anything really demanding, former TV child star Yang Zi 杨紫, now 20 and plumped up for the role, is on screen almost the entire time and manages to hold the attention as a student who may or may not be completely delusional in her dogged pursuit of a supposed killer. (Child star Lin Miaoke 林妙可 uncutely plays her as a child.) Some of her character’s family background, which is only revealed at the end, would have been better interwoven earlier on to underpin the psychology, but Li still constructs several tense sequences around her (the accident, breaking into the man’s flat, finding his workplace underground) that convincingly play on her youthful blundering. As her quarry, Hong Kong TV actor Luo Dahua 骆达华 also manages to keep the viewer guessing. Fellow Hong Konger Lin Xue 林雪 [Lam Suet] is just OK, and not ideally cast, as the girl’s estranged father.
A couple of dream sequences – especially the opening one – contain imagery that raises hopes Insistence could become a real psychothriller, though in the event it’s more of a psychodrama rooted in everyday reality and played out in grey, wintry urban landscapes. The Chinese title roughly translates as “The Obsessive”, derived from a four-character phrase about doggedly pursuing a crazy undertaking.
CREDITS
Presented by Beijing Soul Impression Media (CN), Long Teng Yi Du (Beijing) Film Investment (CN). Produced by Easily Crow Film Studio (CN).
Script: Li Mingming. Photography: Liu Zhangmu. Editing: Meng Peicong. Music: Zhao Bo. Art direction: Su Guohao. Costumes: Wang Lei. Sound: Xiao Jing. Action: Zhao Zhenhua. Special effects: Li Tao. Executive direction: Qiu Zhongwei.
Cast: Yang Zi (Gu Jiajia), Luo Dahua (Sun Zhe/Qi Dazhou), Liu Xiaoxiao (Changchang, Gu Jiajia’s friend), Lin Xue [Lam Suet] (Gu Jiajia’s father), Du Yiheng (Sun Zhe), Lin Miaoke (young Gu Jiajia), Xu Peiyun (Gu Jiajia’s grandmother), Chen Feiyu (Chen, psychologist), Wang Ye (Li, policeman).
Release: China, 23 Aug 2012.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 29 Dec 2012.)