ATM
逗爱熊仁镇
China, 2019, colour, 2.35:1, 102 mins.
Director: Zha Muchen 查慕春.
Rating: 6/10.
Off-the-wall crime comedy set in a small town boasts lively playing and a surreal sense of humour.
STORY
A city in southern China, the present day. The daughter of a fishmonger, Meng Xiaoxian (Zhang Rongrong) has a senior position in the ATM section of Yanhuang Bank, which expressly prohibits any love affairs between its staff for security reasons. She is ruthless in sacking anyone she discovers but is herself involved in a clandestine relationship with a junior member of the department, He Bi (Zhu Yawen). On 6 Aug, in Xiongren township 300 kilometres away, the bank loses RMB50,000 when an oldstyle ATM starts paying out double the amount requested. Meng Xiaoxian is given a week by her boss to find the culprit(s) and recover all the money – or else. She ends up making a bet with He Bi that whoever can succeed keeps their job. Chapter 1: He Bi, the Intruder 第一章 闯入者何必. He Bi arrives in Xiongren (pop. 852) and is told by the branch manager that the system had developed a fault and there’s no CCTV footage of the night in question. He can only give He Bi a long list of customers’ names. After questioning one, butcher Wang Dalan (Liu Shiliu), He Bi is almost killed for doubting his honesty. Chapter 2: The Killer Bears 第二章 喋血双熊. Local tattoist Hu Canlan (Wang Liang) and his taxi driver pal Da Ta (Lu Ye) panic and decide to get rid of He Bi, whom they think is an undercover detective. After a confrontation, however, all three end up half-buried alive by a local gangster. Later, He Bi confronts veteran gangster Old Good-for-Nothing (Han Yanbo) in a bathhouse and ends up half-buried again. Chapter 3: Meng Xiaoxian, the Troublemaker 第三章 搅局者蒙小鲜. Getting worried, Meng Xiaoxian races to Xiongren, confronts both game-arcade owner Xiong Dazhuang (Wang Xufeng) and butcher Wang Dalan, and orders them to pay up. Chapter 4: Compete for Money and Love 第四章 争钱斗爱. Xiong Mengyun (Xiao Fan), daughter of Xiong Dazhuang and girlfriend of Hu Canlan, explains to He Bi why the town is called Xiongren [Bear Benevolence] and the locals worship a giant bear, even though nowadays there are no bears around. Hu Canlan sees them together and wonders whether He Bi is the father of the child he’s heard Xiong Mengyun is carrying. Chapter 5: Operation Entrapment 第五章 诱捕行动. Xiong Mengyun makes up with Hu Canlan, and Meng Xiaoxian makes up with He Bi in her hotel room. But then she double-crosses him and goes after the final suspect on her own.
REVIEW
Wacky comedies don’t get much wackier than ATM 逗爱熊仁镇, in which the paper-thin plot – two bank staffers visit a small town to find out who’s been draining a faulty cash dispenser – is simply a hook on which to hang a series of outré character sketches. Written and directed by Zha Muchun 查慕春, who’s contributed to several absurdist crime comedies (Set Off 即日启程, 2008; The Kidnap 绑架冰激凌, 2010; Goldbuster 妖铃铃, 2017) as well as penning solo the messy sci-fi thriller Reset 逆时营救 (2017), it’s fared better at the box office than his first directorial outing – the chefs-form-a-rock-band comedy Hot Blood Band 热血男人帮 (2015) – but still managed only a miniscule RMB6 million. Despite flopping financially, it’s a likeable, if over-long, entertainment, with a genuinely loopy sense of humour and sometimes surreal approach to story-telling, with lively playing from leads Zhu Yawen 朱亚文 and French-Taiwan actress Zhang Rongrong 张榕容 [Sandrine Pinna] as well as the whole cast.
The opening minutes give an idea of the craziness to come as Zhang’s tyrannical bank executive interrogates and then sacks a couple of staffers who (contrary to company rules) are in a clandestine relationship; it then turns out that she herself is in one with a hopeless office junior (Zhu). All this rule-breaking has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot – and isn’t even referred to again until the film’s close – as Pinna’s exec is given seven days (or else) to sort out the mess with a provincial backwater’s ATM. After making a wager with her lover (for reasons never fully explained) over who can sort it out, he sets out first to Xiongren (“Bear Benevolence”) township.
Punctuated with punny chapter titles (including an untranslateable riff on the 1989 The Killers 喋血双雄), what follows looks like being a fairly standard smalltown comedy-cum-crime caper. What keeps it spinning, however, is the energy of Zhu’s and (especially) Zhang’s performances, plus writer-director Zha’s lateral approach to story-telling. The “plot” barely makes sense but the visual jokes and parodies are witty, the cutting (by Hong Kong’s Xu Hongyu 许宏宇 [Derek Hui] and his associate Tan Xiangyuan 檀向媛) is lively, and the flights of fancy (including one scene showing the whole population dressed in bear suits) suitably surreal. The film overstays its welcome in the final stages, and could profitably have lost some 10 minutes, but it deserves an extra point for sheer invention.
Onetime Taiwan indie queen Zhang has never been noted either for comedy or consistency but here gives one of her most focused performances as the alpha-female bank exec. (Zha had earlier co-written the Paris segment of the portmanteau Cities in Love 恋爱中的城市, 2015, in which Zhang had starred, so she may well have been in his mind for the role.) The scenes where she takes on a market-ful of butchers with comic triad lingo or athletically cavorts in a hotel room with Zhu’s omega-male lover are among the highlights, and the versatile Zhu (The Witness 我是证人, 2015; When Larry Met Mary 陆垚知马俐, 2016) makes a good comic foil to her aggressiveness. Among the supports, Wang Liang 王亮 and Lu Ye 卢野 are okay as a tattoist and his reggae-wigged pal, while Xiao Fan 晓凡 (aka Qie Lutong 郄路通), good as the lovestruck classmate in Young Style 青春派 (2013), hits the right note of crazy cuteness.
Technical credits are fine, led by the widescreen photography of d.p./director Wang Yumeng 王育萌 (online sci-fi movie Lost in Space 迷失空间, 2016) and score by US-born Tian Zhiren 田志仁 [Christopher Tin]. The Chinese title roughly means “Crazed Love in Xiongren Township” and the name of Zhu’s character literally means “what’s the point?”, an apt description of his uselessness. Shot two years ago on the coast of Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai, the film is also known under the English title Welcome to the Beartown.
CREDITS
Presented by iQiyi Pictures (Shanghai) (CN).
Script: Zha Muchun. Photography: Wang Yumeng. Editing: Xu Hongyu [Derek Hui], Tan Xiangyuan. Music: Tian Zhiren [Christopher Tin]. Music direction: Yu Fei. Art direction: Guo Zhongshan. Styling: Ye Zhuzhen. Sound: Wang Yanwei.
Cast: Zhu Yawen (He Bi), Zhang Rongrong [Sandrine Pinna] (Meng Xiaoxian), Wang Liang (Hu Canlan, tattoist), Lu Ye (Da Ta, taxi driver), Xiao Fan (Xiong Mengyun), Han Yanbo (Old Good-for-Nothing), Wang Xufeng (Xiong Dazhuang), Liu Shiliu (Wang Dalan, butcher), Qian Bo.
Release: China, 7 Sep 2019.