A Long Shot

老枪

China, 2023, colour, 16:9, 116 mins.

Director: Gao Peng 高朋.

Rating: 6/10.

Intimate drama set in depressed northeast China during the 1990s has strong performances but is weakened by a poorly balanced screenplay.

STORY

Fenglin city, Andong province, northeast China, the early 1990s. Five years ago, marksman Gu Xuebing (Zu Feng) was diagnosed with hearing loss in his right ear; it was four years since he had last competed internationally. Now he is working as a senior member of the security team at Fenglin Ferro-Alloy Factory, a giant state-owned enterprise that still employees 8,000 workers but, like many similar companies, is hardly managing to stay open as China moves from a centralised to a market economy. Unemployment in the region is high, and rampant theft regularly takes place at the factory. Gu Xuebing’s co-workers, led by his friend Tian Yonglie (Shao Bing), accept bribes from the thieves to turn a blind eye, though Gu Xuebing refuses to. Gu Xuebing has now lost all hearing in his right ear. He eats regularly at a noodle stall run by the divorced Jin Yujia (Qin Hailu), who has a teenage son, Geng Xiaojun (Zhou Zhengjie), whom Gu Xuebing discovers runs with a gang of thieves. Geng Xiaojun begs him not to tell his mother and Gu Xuebing agrees, as he and Jin Yujia are fond of each other. Gu Xuebing tries to help Geng Xiaojun by telling young gang leader Ma Eryong (Mu Tong) to stay away from him; but he gets beaten up by Ma Eryong’s men for his efforts and gets no thanks from Geng Xiaojun. The whole security team is told they won’t be paid for a while due to the factory’s financial problems. One night Gu Xuebing catches Geng Xiaojun and his pals robbing the factory; he confronts Ma Eryong, who has a gun, and is partly saved by Geng Xiaojun, who has developed a grudging admiration for Gu Xuebing. Afterwards, Gu Xuebing shows Geng Xiaojun an antique gun that he’s building from spare parts. Jin Yujia has started working serving drinks at a nightclub owned by Zhao Yongqiang (Feng Lei), a local businessman; Geng Xiaojun visits it one night and is shocked by all the goings-on, which he (wrongly) thinks his mother is a part of. One night, after arresting some more thieves at the factory, Gu Xuebing takes a stand against Tian Yonglie and his bribe-taking colleagues. But he is finally forced to let the thieves go on procedural grounds. Exhausted by the whole situation, Tian Yonglie tells Gu Xuebing that he’s leaving for the south to find some proper work. Then one day Geng Xiaojun is arrested for theft at Fenglin factory, and Jin Yujia learns the truth about her son.

REVIEW

An intimate drama set in northeast China during the economically depressed early 1990s, A Long Shot 老枪 is helped by a strong cast, led by actor Zu Feng 祖峰 and actress Qin Hailu 秦海璐, that hides some of the weaknesses in the screenplay. Despite the familiar setting of run-down state enterprises trying to adjust to the realities of a market economy, and a society hit by unemployment and petty crime, this first feature by Gao Peng 高朋 is still worth a look. After premiering at the Tokyo film festival in autumn 2023, it finally opened theatrically in China a year later, taking a tiny RMB5.6 million.

Gao studied directing at the Beijing Film Academy and subsequently worked as an assistant and executive director; from 2008 he made commercials and a large number of shorts. His first theatrical feature was the high-school horror movie Disturbed Souls on Campus 开学悸 (2018), co-directed with Malaysian-born (and fellow BFS graduate) Liu Dingye 刘鼎业 [Henry Liu Ting Yeh], which featured two separate stories linked by the story of a female student waiting alone in a creepy lecture hall for her boyfriend to arrive (see poster, left). Gao directed the first, very slickly packaged story (The Scar 伤疤), centred on a bullied student and a fellow female student who befriends her. However, the film was solidly of its genre and made zero impression at the box office, even by Chinese horror-movie standards (RMB1.4 million). Gao then directed the 24-part online youth rom-com Make a Wish 喵，请许愿 (2021), produced by streaming platform iQiyi (see left).

A Long Shot has none of the clever lighting of Campus or the bright, glossy look of Wish. Realistically, though not grungily, shot by Chinese arthouse fave Florian Zinke 陆一帆 (Double Xposure 二次曝光, 2012; Baby 宝贝儿, 2018; Nina Wu 灼人秘密, 2019; The Unseen Sister 乔妍的心事, 2024), it is all centred on the performances – especially actors’ faces – with no visual flourishes. At the very centre of the drama is Gu Xuebing (Zu), a onetime marksman who’s gone deaf in one ear and is now working as part of a security team at a large, state-owned factory in the fictional location of Fenglin, Andong province. With his kindly, almost apologetic face, Nanjing-born Zu, 50 – a longtime supporting actor in TV (classic spy drama Lurk 潜伏, 2008) and film (drugs drama Extraordinary Mission 非凡任务, 2017), here in a rare leading role – immediately draws the viewer into the world of a man who’s been robbed of his main interest in life but is at least determined to keep his values in difficult times.

The centre of the story is his attempt to steer the teenage son of the working-class woman (Qin) he’s fond of away from petty crime, preferably without letting her even know. None of this goes particularly well – as the impressionable youth is pulled this way and that – and tends to overshadow the relationship between Gu Xuebing and his woman, especially as the screenplay provides few opportunities for the adult pair to open their hearts to each other and her son is rarely portrayed as anything other than sulky or devious. The experienced Qin, 46, makes the most of what she’s given by the script but too many scenes are simply of her looking wistfully at the emotionally wrapped-up Gu Xuebing. As the son, Zhou Zhengjie 周政杰, 24, is okay but no more. Making a big impression with only a limited number of scenes is veteran Shao Bing 邵兵, 57, now rarely seen in either film or TV, as the security team’s head, a basically decent man who’s weary of accepting bribes and bending the rules. His scenes with Zu ironically carry more emotional weight than those between Zu and Qin.

Such imbalances in the script, as well as the failure to properly integrate the story of the old handgun that Gu Xuebing is building in his spare time, move the film at least a notch down from what it could have been, as well as robbing it of a real dramatic centre. As a result, the climax is much less powerful than it should have been. Technical credits are fine at all levels. The Chinese title means “The Old Gun”. The film has no connection with the famous 1975 French wartime drama Le vieux fusil, directed by Robert Enrico and starring Philippe Noiret and Romy Schneider.

CREDITS

Presented by Momo Pictures (CN), Beijing CFDG Culture & Development (CN).

Script: Gao Peng, Wang Ang, Wang Wen, Fang Chang. Photography: Florian Zinke. Editing: Matthieu Laclau. Music: Gao Xiaoyang. Art direction: Liu Weixin. Styling: Liu Jun. Sound: Fu Kang.

Cast: Zu Feng (Gu Xuebing), Qin Hailu (Jin Yujia), Zhou Zhengjie (Geng Xiaojun), Feng Lei (Zhao Yongqiang), Shao Bing (Tian Yonglie), Mu Tong (Ma Eryong), He Xiwei [He Jiaoshou] (gang boss), Zhu Haiyu (Gangzi), Ye Fusheng (Da Lei), Yi Yunhe.

Premiere: Tokyo Film Festival (Competition), 24 Oct 2023.

Release: China, 1 Nov 2024.