Tracing Kong Ling Xue

跟踪孔令学

China, 2011, colour, 1.85:1, 96 mins.

Director: Zhang Xiao 张骁.

Rating: 7/10.

Comic veteran Fan Wei shines in a modest but well-crafted black comedy about a teacher and a hoodlum.

STORY

A city in northeast China, December. Kong Lingxue (Fan Wei), a Chinese Language teacher at Shuangquan Wenwu School, confiscates the mobile phone of a pupil, Liu Meng (Bai Huzi), who has been using it to listen to music in class. The rebellious Liu Meng is disrespectful to Kong Lingxue and he banishes her from class, later reporting the incident to Yang Qiuye (Ma Yili), a colleague and friend, who urges caution. While going home after classes, Kong Lingxue stops a fight outside the school between young hoodlum Xiang (Zhi Yi) and a pupil he’s harrassing. Xiang, who claims to be Liu Meng’s boyfriend, tries to intimidate Kong Lingxue by following him home, and the latter only escapes him with difficulty. The next day Xiang suddenly appears in the street when Kong Lingxue is picking up his eight-year-old daughter, Kong Aoxue (Yan Jiayi), from school; Kong Lingxue confronts Xiang again over his motives but the latter feigns friendship. Kong Lingxue and his daughter only manage to avoid him after several attempts. At school Kong Lingxue tries to befriend Liu Meng and get her to split with Xiang but she rejects him. The daily game of Xiang following Kong Lingxue continues and, when Kong Lingxue one evening spends time with Yang Qiuye, his wife Lili (Sun Ning) even suspects him of having an affaire. Finally, Kong Lingxue asks the help of his school’s PE teacher (Feng Dawei) who knows someone who can take care of the problem.

REVIEW

The type of modest, well-crafted film with a point that’s rapdily becoming a rarity in current-day Chinese cinema, Tracing Kong Ling Xue 跟踪孔令学 is a fine showcase for the blackly comic skills of veteran actor Fan Wei 范伟 as well as the first significant feature by writer-director Zhang Xiao 张骁, a Beijing Film School graduate who previously worked as a TV music producer/composer. A black comedy about a street hoodlum who gently harrasses a well-meaning teacher by trying to follow him home every day, the script by Bai Tiejun 白铁军, who’s written for director Feng Xiaogang 冯小刚 (Sorry Baby 没完没了, 1999) and crosstalk comic Zhao Benshan 赵本山, was specifically tailored for Fan, whose contained, slightly bumbling performance as the titular Kong Lingxue is the heart and soul of the movie.

Though the place where it’s set is never identified, the film was shot in the steel-making and coal-mining city of Benxi, Liaoning province, and the unfussy, naturalistic photography by d.p. Liang Da 梁达 accurately conveys the dour feel of life during a northeast China urban winter. That naturalism initially works against the film – prompting the viewer to ask why Fan’s upright character doesn’t just ask the help of the police – but as the daily cat-and-mouse game between him and the young hoodlum gets under way it becomes clear that Tracing is more a blackly comic moral fable than a realistic drama. (Bai’s script is based on a 2008 novella, 大风起兮 [“A Strong Wind Rises”] by Hebei writer Hu Xuewen 胡学文 – collected in the 2009 volume, left – whose work also inspired the equally fable-like rural drama A Fool 一个勺子, 2014.) Fan’s typically poe-faced humour is one signal of the film’s intent, but the quirky, repetitive music by director Zhang himself is another, as well as the comic escalation in the teacher’s attempts to avoid his tracker. (One witty episode has him cornered in a love hotel and only getting out by quoting the 20th-century modernist poet Zhu Ziqing 朱自清 to the gangster owner.) The story gently makes its point about mutual tolerance without any explicit sermonising, another nice surprise.

At 90 minutes the film does feel a bit stretched in the second half and would work equally well as a 60-minute TV movie. But Zhang has surrounded Fan with a fine cast, including TV actress Sun Ning 孙宁 in her big-screen debut as his gradually exasperated wife, Ma Yili 马伊琍 (a fine actress too rarely seen in films) as a sympathetic teaching colleague, and not least Zhi Yi 支一, then 20, in his acting debut as the street hoodlum, with just the right mixture of threat, innocence and criminality. As the sulky student, actress Bai Huizi 白卉子, in her first role after leaving Beijing Film School, isn’t given much to work with. Director Zhang himself pops up at the end as the school’s wily headmaster.

The English title on the film appears to be a misspelling for Tracking Kong Ling Xue. On posters the English title is Tracks Kong Ling Xue. The film made no box-office impression on release (RMB2.7 million).

CREDITS

Presented by China Film Group (CN), Shenyang Daxia Huangzhong Cultural Dissemination (CN), Video & Film Culture Media (Beijing) (CN). Produced by Guangdong Joint Stainless Steel (CN), Xinming Investment Holding (CN).

Script: Bai Tiejun. Novella: Hu Xuewen. Photography: Liang Da. Editing: Xu Bin. Music: Zhang Xiao. Art direction: He Fei. Sound: Bi Yang. Executive direction: Song Geting.

Cast: Fan Wei (Kong Lingxue), Ma Yili (Yang Qiuye), Sun Ning (Lili, Kong Lingxue’s wife), Bai Huizi (Liu Meng), Zhi Yi (Xiang), Yan Jiayi (Kong Aoxue, Kong Lingxue’s daughter), Feng Dawei (Qiuzi), Wang Han (Luo Jin), Guan Xiaoping (Liu Meng’s father), Huang Lihua (Liu Meng’s stepmother), Chen Xiaoguang (love-hotel manager), Wan Caiyan (doctor), Zhang Xiao (Zhou, headmaster).

Release: China, 29 Apr 2011.