The Unexpected
原祸
China, 2016, b&w/colour, 16:9, 82 mins.
Director: An Zhanjun 安战军.
Rating: 6/10.
Modest, well-played village yarn is an above-average chamber drama of the present haunted by the past.
STORY
A stone village in the mountains, northern China, the present day. On a wedding day, a man is knocked unconscious and the groom’s father is arrested. Three years later, Yang Gangzi (Li Qi) visits his father Yang Shanben (Sun Min) in prison. He tells him that Hu Cuihua (Liu Mintao) – Yang Shanben’s wife – is now in Beijing and that he, Yang Gangzi, has taken Sun Fu (Liu Hua), the villager who was almost killed, away from the welfare centre and into his own house, as Sun Fu now has the IQ of a two-year-old due to brain damage. (More than three years ago, Sun Fu had returned to the village after a long time away getting rich and going through three marriages. He had boasted he wanted to open a hotel in the village and had also started making moves on Hu Cuihua, a married women with a grown son. She’d said she wasn’t interested, as her husband was “a good man” and she still couldn’t forgive Sun Fu for dumping her years ago. What she didn’t tell Sun Fu was that Yang Shanben had been suffering from impotency, though a doctor had told him he was physically okay. The arrogant Sun Fu had guessed the problem and brought Yang Shanben a bottle of special wine; he also made no attempt to hide from the cowardly Yang Shanben his interest in Hu Cuihua, which further stoked the anger of her son, Yang Gangzi, against Sun Fu.) After visiting his father in prison, Yang Gangzi goes back home, to his wife Qiuling (Chen Shu) and the retarded Sun Fu. (Yang Shanben had told Hu Cuihua she was free to leave him if she wanted, but only after Yang Gangzi was married. Hui Cuihua had been moved by his offer but had declined. Sun Fu had continued to come round, even claiming Yang Gangzi was his child and threatening a DNA test to prove it. Yang Gangzi had taken his father to a spa in town for “treatment” and afterwards Yang Shanben’s impotency had disappeared. Sun Fu had come round with a rifle and ordered Yang Shanben to send Hu Cuihua to him within three days. Yang Shanben had told her he couldn’t fight Sun Fu any longer; she had been angry but then suddenly had disappeared. After a frantic search, she had called from town, saying she was about to catch a train.) Yang Gangzi arrives in Beijing to bring his mother back to the village and live with his wife and the retarded Sun Fu. She’s glad to be back, and she also visits Yang Shanben in prison, though he refuses to listen to her tearful confession of guilt for what happened. (After serving a short jail term, Sun Fu had returned to the village and started to threaten Yang Shanben again, accusing him of hiding Hu Cuihua away. Then the day of Yang Gangzi and Qiuling’s wedding had arrived.)
REVIEW
Strong leads, and an especially notable performance by actress Liu Mintao 刘敏涛, distinguish village drama The Unexpected 原祸, a modest but above-average outing by prolific journeyman An Zhanjun 安战军 that typically focuses on community relationships. Written by veteran film and TV actor-writer Chu Jian 楚建 (aka Chu Jianfu 楚建富), and cleanly shot by d.p. Liu Feng 刘峰 (horror Bloody House 笔仙诡影, 2016) in a remote stone village in the mountains of southern Hebei province, it largely eschews high drama in favour of a more mellow message of forgiveness and healing that also chimes with An’s more personal films.
Largely a TV actress, Shandong-born Liu, then 40, had already appeared in a couple of TV dramas by An as well as his low-key prison yarn Brother 黑暗中的救赎 (2012). But in Unexpected, as a wife preyed on by an arrogant, past lover, she’s central to the whole drama and entirely believable in the role, moving from naggy to caring to feelings of guilt as the past rises up to confront everyone – from her weak but loving husband through her grown son to the past lover now reduced to an imbecile by a brain injury. Character veteran Sun Min 孙敏 – with whom Liu had previously made earthquake-recovery drama Reviving of Beichuan 北川重生 (2011) – is equally good as the husband and Li Qi 李琪 solid as their son. More often seen in lighter roles, the experienced Liu Hua 刘桦, 55, lacks some heft in portraying the obsessive past lover as the villain he really is, though the character has shadings that might have eluded a darker actor.
Bouncing back and forth from present to past, the film is two-thirds in b&w (for the past) and only a third in colour – a technique An was to deploy in two other films around this time, For the Memory Never Forgotten 黑蝴蝶 (2017), which gave Liu one of her most striking roles to date, and the routine “inspirational” melodrama The Burning of Life 燃灯者 (2017). Music by Yang Yilun 杨一伦, who’s scored several of An’s movies, is simple and chamber-like. The location for the filming was Wangnao village, Chaiguan township, Shahe municipality, southern Hebei province, southwest of Beijing. The film’s Chinese title means “Original Misfortune”.
CREDITS
Presented by Hao’an (Beijing) Movie TV Culture Media (CN). Produced by Hao’an (Beijing) Movie TV Culture Media (CN).
Script: Chu Jian. Photography: Liu Feng. Editing: Wang Yongjie. Music: Yang Yilun. Art direction: Yan Tingfeng. Costumes: Sun Zhaowei. Sound: Zhang Xiaonan. Executive direction: Ren Lei.
Cast: Sun Min (Yang Shanben), Liu Mintao (Hu Cuihua), Liu Hua (Sun Fu), Li Qi (Yang Gangzi), Chen Shu (Qiuling).
Premiere: The World Film Festival, Montréal, 25 Aug 2016.
Release: China, tba.